Eagle's T-shaped lift sacrificed future flexibility

Eagle's battleship hull made her a robust platform for observation aircraft supporting the battle fleet. The T-shaped elevator let contemporary fighters ride with their wings spread, but its projecting arms created unusable space above and below. A larger rectangular lift could have handled the same fighter, several folded aircraft, and later types with fewer constraints. Aircraft had already grown markedly between 1915 and Eagle's 1924 commissioning, so the direction of travel was visible to her designers. The example frames future-proofing as a core requirement in a ship type whose embarked aircraft change much faster than the hull.