Why not abandon battleships before naval air power matured?

Why did navies keep investing in battleships before aircraft had proved they could replace them?

Because betting everything on carriers before aircraft matured risked catastrophic failure if air-power predictions were wrong.

A viewer frames early naval-air policy as an asymmetric strategic gamble while aircraft capability was still uncertain. If air-power advocates were right, money spent on battleships would be wasted. If they were wrong and the Navy had spent everything on carriers, Britain could lose the fleet strength on which imperial security depended. The answer agrees that this captures why a mixed investment strategy remained rational during technological uncertainty.