Vickers in the context of "Supermarine"

Sir Vincent Henry Penalver Caillard (23 October 1856 – 18 March 1930) was a British intelligence officer, diplomat, financier, industrialist and company director, principally for Vickers.

After being commissioned in the Royal Engineers, in the early 1880s Caillard was engaged in intelligence duties in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean. In 1883, he was appointed to a senior position on the Ottoman Public Debt Council in Constantinople, where he lived with his family. After returning to England in 1898 Caillard entered private business, taking up positions as a director in a diversity of companies engaged in areas such as in banking, agricultural development and railways.

The SR.N4 (Saunders-Roe Nautical 4) hovercraft (also known as the Mountbatten class hovercraft) was a 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).