While the prototype was originally designed to compete in an air-race around the UK, eight more similar aircraft were built for the Royal Naval Air Service.

They were set to compete in the Daily Mail £5,000 Circuit of Britain race for seaplanes, scheduled to start on 10 August that year.

[3] This was a two-bay, uneven-span pusher biplane powered by a 120 hp (90 kW) Beardmore-built Austro Daimler engine mounted between the upper and lower wings.

Its hull, the construction of which was subcontracted to S. E. Saunders, was of copper sewn mahogany (or Consuta) over a wooden frame and carried a crew of two in a side-by-side cockpit.

3 flying boats, which could be fitted with a Lewis gun on the port side of the cockpit were used for anti-submarine patrols from various bases both in the United Kingdom and France (with one force landing in the Netherlands and being interned) and latterly for training.