Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.12 was a British single-seat aeroplane of The First World War designed at the Royal Aircraft Factory. The B.E.12 was essentially a B.E.2c with the front (observer''s) cockpit replaced by a large fuel tank, and the 90hp RAF 1 engine of the standard B.E.2c replaced by the new 150 hp RAF 4. Aviation historians once considered the type purely as a failed attempt to create a fighter aircraft based on the B.E.2 - that was hastily improvised, and rushed into service to meet the Fokker threat. In fact many writers perpetuate this view, or something like it. J.M. Bruce, in Warplanes of the First World War has pointed out that this is simplistic at best, and doesn''t fit historically.