This team was headed by Chief Engineer Fred Green, but details were by John Kenworthy, who had designed the derivatives of the B.E.3,[1] The H stood for hydroplane (sea- or float plane),[2] for the specification came from the Air Department of the Admiralty for the Naval Wing of the R.F.C.

[3] The fuselage was flat sided with a deep, rounded decking similar to that of the earlier R.E.1, though the front cockpit was much longer and more open-sided in the later aircraft.

In this configuration the rudder was mounted above and clear of the tail plane, leaving room for the one piece elevators and having the same shape, roughly a flattened oval with its long axis parallel with the fuselage, as that of the B.E.3.

The aircraft was seriously damaged in an attempted take off from Frensham Pond and then rebuilt as a landplane once again, fitted with ailerons rather than wing warping.

[3] It kept the revised fin and rudder and had a two-wheeled, single-axle undercarriage mounted on two longitudinal members that projected forwards to form "hockey stick" anti-nose-over skids like those of the B.E.1.