The captain's submarine background may have encouraged a mistaken mental model of carrier aviation. In that model, aircraft resemble heavy guns: they are deployed when a target appears and remain idle when no immediate attack is ordered. Carrier aircraft also perform persistent reconnaissance, warning, and local defence, which makes an airborne presence valuable before an enemy is detected. Treating them only as episodic offensive weapons helps explain why Glorious sailed without the patrol that might have prevented surprise.
Notable Point · 1:29:55-1:30:27
The doctrinal error of treating aircraft like guns
Glorious's captain treated aircraft as weapons to launch only for a defined attack rather than as a continuous reconnaissance and defensive screen.