The Royal Navy might have argued that remotely controlled aircraft operated by observers were not conventional piloted aircraft and therefore could be procured under naval authority. Retired Fairey airframes existed in substantial numbers and could have provided an early pool of expendable strike machines. They would not replace fighters, but used alongside Fleet Air Arm aircraft they might have multiplied attacking strength. The unanswered closing question asks how other navies would respond if Britain used that bureaucratic workaround to field remote strike squadrons before the Second World War.
Notable Point · 38:06-40:09
A Royal Navy remote-strike air group before 1939
The closing counterfactual asks whether pilotless aircraft could have let the Royal Navy build its own strike force outside Air Ministry control.