SR.N4
hovercraft built for cross-channel services
The SR.N4 (Saunders-Roe Nautical 4) hovercraft (also known as the Mountbatten class hovercraft) is a retired combined passenger and vehicle-carrying class of hovercraft. The type has the distinction of being the largest civil hovercraft to have ever been put into service.
Work on the SR.N4 was initiated in 1965 by Saunders-Roe. By the time that the vehicle's first trials took place in early 1968, Saunders-Roe had merged with Vickers' hovercraft division to form the British Hovercraft Corporation, who continued development. Power was provided by four Rolls-Royce Proteus marine turboshaft engines each driving its own lift fan and pylon-mounted steerable propulsion propeller. The SR.N4 was the largest hovercraft then built, designed to carry 254 passengers in two cabins besides a four-lane automobile bay which held up to 30 cars. Cars were driven from a bow ramp just forward of the wheelhouse. The first design was 40 metres (131 ft) long, weighed 190 long tons (193 t), was capable of 83 knots (96 mph; 154 km/h) and could cruise at over 60 knots (69 mph; 111 km/h).
The SR.N4s operated regular services across the English Channel between 1968 and 2000. In response to operator demands, stretched versions of the SR.N4 were developed, culminating in the Mk.III variant, which had almost double the capacity for carrying both cars and passengers as the Mk.I. While interest was expressed in military applications for the type, no vehicles were ultimately used for such purposes.
“SR.N4” enters the record as hovercraft built for cross-channel services. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what hovercraft, built and cross-channel can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“SR.N4” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, hovercraft, built and cross-channel provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1759743. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1965, 1968 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “SR.N4” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.