The Zephyr was therefore even more underpowered than the Hurricane, and it was decided to put the Douglas engine into the latter aircraft and enter it for the trials. However, by this time the Aero Club had designed and built the much more modern looking Hurricane, a cantilever monoplane with less air resistance and slightly lower weight, though no lightweight. The first flight went well, and Bulman reported excellent handling. It was certainly later than intended, for the Zephyr had been registered as a competitor in the Vauvilles (near Cherbourg) Light Plane and Glider event which ended on 26 August.

The Zephyr flew for the first time with Paul Bulman in control on 3 September 1923, with just over a month before the start of the Lympne Trials on 8 October. The twin-wheeled main undercarriage was supplemented by twin sprung tails skids, one under each fin. The tailplane was mounted at the meeting of the booms and twin triangular fins, each bearing a near rectangular rudder were placed at the ends of each vertical pair of booms. Four booms ran rearwards from the wings, two on each side converging in the vertical plane from the inner interplane struts to the tail, with rectangular bracing to stiffen them. The Zephyr's pilot sat under the front wing with a long but downward sloping nose ahead of him. It was a pusher design, reminiscent of the Royal Aircraft Factory F.E series, for example the FE8, with a full fuselage replaced with a pod or nacelle with the cockpit and the engine behind it, the empennage supported on an open frame. The Zephyr was a two bay biplane with wings without stagger or sweep and of constant chord with square tips. As the Club originally considered it as an entrant to the Lympne Motor Glider Competition where the Daily Mail prize of £1000 for a 50-mile flight was limited to aircraft with engines of less than 750 cc capacity, it was fitted with a 600 cc Douglas flat-twin engine that produced only about 20 hp (15 kW).

The Zephyr was the first of three light aircraft designed and built by the Aero Club of the RAE. At a late stage the Aero Club chose to enter the more promising RAE Hurricane instead, using the Zephyr's engine, and the Zephyr itself was abandoned. The RAE Zephyr was a single-seat, single-engined light pusher configuration biplane designed and built by the Aero Club of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) for the 1923 Lympne Motor Glider Competition. Aero Club of the Royal Aircraft Establishment

Zephyr by Amara Rae