Merchant Ship Fighter Unit

The single catapult consisted of an eighty-five-foot rail, along which a trolley carrying a Hurricane (later Hurricats were used for this) would be propelled by a battery of three-inch rockets over a distance of sixty feet. Using thirty-degree wing flaps, a pilot could make a successful takeoff while losing minimal height.

Most notable was the inability of the CAM ship to recover the aircraft, and as a result launches out of reach of land were one way flights that required the pilot to bail out or ditch in the sea when the aircraft's fuel was exhausted. While every effort was made to pick up the pilot, operational factors such as the convoy being under U-boat attack could mean that a ship may not be detached to pick up the pilot. On the convoys to Russia the low sea temperatures meant that the pilot had a low potential survival rate unless picked up very soon after landing in the sea.

Eventually CAM ships were replaced beginning in 1943 with the introduction into service of