Split Fleet Air Arm control obstructed a tender program

The Fleet Air Arm was operationally naval, but pilots, maintainers, observers, budgets, and procurement did not sit under one clean chain of authority. The Royal Navy had to route aircraft requirements through the Air Ministry and industry. This divided system made it harder to expand a specialist reconnaissance force whose ships and aircraft crossed departmental budgets. Even so, float-equipped Walrus and Swordfish aircraft show that multi-role naval aircraft were available; the obstacle was less technical impossibility than institutional coordination and priority.