In article ,
"Gord Beaman" wrote:
William Hughes wrote:

Early piston aircraft had a lot of torque generated by the engine. In a wave-off
situation, the sharp increase in power would roll the aircraft slightly to port.
Combined with pulling back on the stick to gain altitude, this would result in a
climbing left turn. Having an island in the way when doing this could ruin your
whole day. Hence, the island was placed on the other side of the filght deck.

So what does one do in an a/c which has an engine turning the
opposite way?...

You have a problem ;0
However, the island ended up where it still is because of the direction
the prop (and engine block) revolved in the Sopwith Pup, Camel and
such things as the Parnell Panther, all of which used Clerget or Bentley
rotary engines which swung in the same direction. Once ships were in
service with islands (by which time the rotary-engined aircraft
were gone from service..) and pilots had got used to them there
was no real advantage in making the change to islands on the opposite
side of the ship (prop. direction might not have changed in the
a/c, but to be honest I'm not that well informed on how the direction of
prop. revolution on output from a Napier Lion - Fairey III & so on -
or Armstrong-Siddley Jaguar - Fairey Flycatcher - compared with
that of the Bentley BR2..).
Islands were needed for fast carriers to get the smoke out without
obstructing the hanger deck, a single island was required so that
eddies from the island could be shed outboard instead of across
the flight deck, and the side chosen for the island was determined
by the turning characteristics of rotary-engined biplanes. Once
the island was on the starboard side, the longer life of ships
than aeroplanes ensured it stayed there..

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Who dies with the most toys wins" (Gary Barnes)