In article ,
"Gord Beaman" wrote:
(ANDREW ROBERT BREEN) wrote:

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..

Thanks Andy, interesting...

There's a photograph I've seen somewhere (not in Brown, though he used
it at his talk at the symposium on 'carrier aviation at Yeovilton a
year ago) of Furious in the 1920s which makes the point about smoke
interference (and thus the need for something like an island, if
only a Glorious-or-Courageous type island which more or less just
consisted of the funnel) - essentially a huge, hideous clous
of opaque black smoke emerging from under the aft round-down.
Seeing where the carrier was would be dam; near impossible,
never mind the hot plume and eddies. Having a flush deck and smoke
ducts was also said to have cost Furious 10 aircraft as compared to
Glorious and Courageous.
The island was one of those truely brilliant ideas.

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)