RNAS and early naval aviation risk

How should Churchill's early support for naval aviation be judged when aviation was still so immature?

It was ambitious and sometimes imperfect, but his support gave British naval aviation momentum at a time when many people dismissed aircraft as impractical.

Early seaplanes, experimental aviation, and the short gap between the Wright brothers and wartime aircraft show why the Royal Naval Air Service looked speculative in 1913-15. Contemporary machines were made largely from wood and canvas, carried little, and in the seaplane case had to take off from and land on water. Churchill's support therefore required political willingness to back a technology whose military value was not yet obvious. That enthusiasm gave British naval aviation valuable momentum even though individual early decisions could still be mistaken. Hindsight makes carrier aviation appear inevitable long before institutions had proved how to use it.