Does anyone remember the Battle of Midway?

[Cytral]

or a building like "tomcat academey"

pilots get carrier training

 

[Soneji]

Nah, just go to war and leave them on intercept.

It only took a couple of turns for me to have two carriers each full with 'Ace' Jets with the others promoted to range II.

 

[PJyang]

It is true that several missiles or bombers can actually sink a battleship in the real world.
But let's take a close look at the game: one population point in the game means thousands of citizens in the real world, one warrior may stand for a large group of armed men, so it is reasonable that one single battleship in the game should count as a large fleet of ships in the real world. Airforce can sink one ship, but to destroy the whole navy? Maybe not.

 

[GoodGame]

Given that in the long run there's a trade off between being able to make carrier landings, and being a pure air superiority fighter, I'd make a completely new unit (this is IMHO, not into air power). So a fighter-bomber with innate promotion of lethal sea bombardment, and ability to stack on a carrier. Remove carrier's ability to stack any other kind of aircraft (except perhaps a gunship, but that's a separate realism issue). Lump any naval aircraft realisms into this hypothetical fighter-bomber (e.g. like I assume you mean the Orion P3 as an anti-sub).

OK, would you then allow any fighter to have this Promotion as a part of their xp progression (which would make Naval Fighters less highly promoted for normal Air Operations than others) or would you attach this promotion to a new unit "Naval Fighter" as a free promo, but then change the Strength, Range, or Cost of the unit vis a vis "Fighter" units?

As long as we are at it, might as well mention a "See Submarines" promotion, only available to Bombers (and Airships, which would get it free?) to make ASW aircraft... what do you think?