Reading the United States' later carrier dominance back into the 1920s and 1930s obscures how several navies developed flight-deck carriers around different requirements. British design put more weight on a carrier's own survivability, while American design favoured a larger air group whose striking power could keep threats at a distance. A 27,000-ton carrier could combine those qualities, but cumulative tonnage limits constrained how many such ships a navy could build. The Washington and First London treaties imposed those cumulative limits; the Second London treaty did not. Akron was a distinct American attempt to extend naval aviation through flying aircraft carriers.
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Why interwar navies built different kinds of carriers
National requirements and cumulative treaty tonnage limits pulled British and American carrier designs apart, while flying aircraft carriers offered the United States a different route to global reach.