The closing design exercise places the viewer in the role of a US naval architect allowed to convert a third Lexington-class hull after Saratoga's 1925 launch. Constitution is the likeliest candidate because an unfinished hull could more plausibly be held at the Philadelphia Navy Yard than at a private yard. The challenge is to decide which machinery, hull, lift, and flight-deck arrangements can still be changed while meeting an accelerated 1929 commissioning deadline. The class's compromises become a constrained design and procurement problem rather than an unconstrained alternate-history rebuild.
Notable Point · 1:08:29-1:13:31
A third Lexington conversion becomes a naval-architecture exercise
The closing thought experiment asks how a 1925 start on a third Lexington-class carrier could incorporate early lessons and still enter service by 1929.