Furious is redesigned for aviation before Jutland

The Royal Navy began reconsidering Furious before Jutland rather than reacting to the battle afterward. Once Fisher left the Admiralty, officers had to find a useful role for a long, fast hull armed with single 18-inch guns. Her dimensions offered room for aircraft at a time when spotting, reconnaissance, and counter-reconnaissance against Zeppelins and other scouts were becoming important fleet functions. Removing the forward gun for a flying-off deck was still an awkward compromise because the central superstructure obstructed any straightforward recovery arrangement. An early plan to recover aircraft over the bow was quickly abandoned, but the conversion turned an uncertain Baltic-project hull into an aviation experiment.