Intended for use as a long-range reconnaissance and bombing aircraft, the B.E.12 was pressed into service as a fighter, in which role it proved disastrously inadequate, mainly due to its poor manoeuvrability.

Aviation historians once considered the type a failed attempt to create a fighter aircraft based on the B.E.2 – that was improvised and rushed into service to meet the Fokker threat.

The idea of dispensing with defensive armament altogether and replacing the observer's seat with extra fuel capacity and/or bombload was typified by several contemporary designs, such as the bomber versions of the Avro 504, and Sopwith 1½ Strutter.

In mid-1915 there was no way for a British single-seat tractor aircraft to carry a forward-firing armament as the Vickers-Challenger "interrupter" gear did not exist until December and was not available in numbers until the following March.

Trials with the prototype continued through late 1915 and seem to have been mainly concerned with the development of the new RAF 4 engine, especially the design of a satisfactory air scoop.

It continued to be employed as a bomber but since an effective defensive gun could not be mounted it was too vulnerable and was finally withdrawn from all front line duties in France in March 1917.

Its stability and range were advantageous for night missions but its rate of climb was inadequate for intercepting the improved German airships of 1916/17, let alone the aeroplane raiders that replaced them.

[3] In the Middle Eastern theatre and in Macedonia, the B.E.12 and B.E.12a proved more useful, typically as long range reconnaissance aircraft rather than as fighters, although Captain Gilbert Ware Murlis Green of No.

No original BE12s are known to exist but The Vintage Aviator Ltd in New Zealand has built an airworthy reproduction which is flown from the firm's Hood Aerodrome, Masterton base.