How World War I air defence led toward fighter direction

The discussion broadens from German tenders to the Royal Navy's search for workable fleet air defence. World War I aircraft lacked the endurance for a modern combat air patrol, encouraging experiments with rapidly launched single-seat fighters and reconnaissance aircraft whose crews could watch for incoming attackers. Interwar two-seat fighters then combined greater endurance with a second observer who could scan the sky and report contacts. Radar did not create fighter direction from nothing; it supplied reliable detection so controllers could position aircraft already waiting aloft. This gradual progression explains why a slow, methodical German seaplane-handling system points much more strongly toward reconnaissance than alert interception.