In the North Sea, 50 nautical miles west of the North Frisian Islands on the border between Germany and Denmark, the dense fleet was cautiously sailing towards the sea antenna of the east.

On one of them, the Ark Royal, a flat-topped ship no less than the Dreadnought battleship, stood the commander of the fleet, Rear Admiral Horace Hood, the founder of British naval aviation.

Admiral Hood, who was in the prime of life, was a typical British gentleman, and his rear admiral's uniform accentuated his majesty and generosity—but this had nothing to do with his career.

The British Navy's interest in aircraft began with the Russo-Asian War.

During the naval battle in the South China Sea, in which the East Asian Combined Fleet annihilated the Russian Second Pacific Fleet, the British observers who sailed with the East Asian Army witnessed the operation of the Chinese naval aircraft carriers and intuitively and profoundly understood the role of aircraft in naval warfare -- the most primitive role, that is, reconnaissance.

Prior to this, the means of reconnaissance carried out by the naval fleet had not fundamentally changed since Nelson's time - that is, the naked eye and telescopes of the crew.

The visual distance of the naked eye is limited, and even at the best of sight, at the top of the highest mast, with the best binoculars, the distance of sight does not exceed 40 nautical miles – in fact, this is rarely the case in the unpredictable oceans.

On this premise, the most effective means to expand the reconnaissance range of the fleet is to send a group of reconnaissance cruisers to the patrol line to conduct reconnaissance, and the reconnaissance cruisers maintain a visual distance from each other and provide information to the commander's flagship by relaying signals.

Although in recent times, the invention of radio has reduced the reliance on visual communication, it still does not solve the problem that it is impossible for a single ship to detect any target beyond visual distance.

In the South China Sea, the East Asian Army relied on seaplanes carried by motherships to preemptively spot the Russian fleet beyond the visual range of our enemies. You can adjust your position in advance to ensure that you can occupy a favorable position as soon as you get engaged.

Before the two fleets had even met, one side had the upper hand, not by reconnaissance cruisers, but by aircraft that were far superior in speed and range to surface ships.

In view of this, the year after the end of the Russo-Asian War (1905), the then Secretary of the Navy McKenna commissioned Lieutenant Colonel Horace Hood to prepare for the creation of the first naval aviation unit.

Hood approached the Wright Brothers, who were selling their planes, and ordered the first batch of six planes, and sent three naval officers to the Wright Brothers to learn to fly.

The following year, SCHOTT Brothers, with a British government background, was founded. Based on several Chinese planes captured on the battlefield provided by Russia, the trial production of Schott series aircraft with better performance than imported Dewright aircraft began.

IN 1907, THE ROYAL NAVY HAD THE FIRST ARK-ROY BENCH-TYPE ROTARY CRANE WITH A SPEED OF 10 KNOTS AND A MAXIMUM OF 10 SCHOTT S1 SEAPLANES, AND THE FIRST CAPTAIN OF THE MOTHERSHIP WAS THE NEWLY PROMOTED COLONEL HOOD.

Hood was not satisfied, and as a prototype for throwing stones to ask for directions, the "Ark Royal" was due to its slow speed, short range, and poor seaworthiness. It cannot follow the fleet to fight at sea, and can only be used as a training ship. Hood was eager to build a fast aircraft-carrying carrier that would be as fast as the latest reconnaissance cruisers.

In 1908, also for the sake of testing, some of the guns and facilities on the old rear deck were equipped with booms and ship+|water engines, and the Royal Navy finally had the first aircraft carrier capable of accompanying the Grand Fleet to sea.

After all, the modification is only a stopgap measure, and with the public appearance of the Chinese Navy's new "Sea Hawk" class water engine carrier, the British are feeling the pressure, and the plan to specially design and build a type of aircraft carrier is on the agenda.

In 1909, under the advance of Secretary of the Navy McKenna|