Experience gained in the development of the SR.N6 has been attributed as heavily contributing towards the design and production of the largest civil hovercraft to be ever produced, the SR.N4.

Portions of the SR.N6's development were performed in conjunction with Hovertravel, a newly formed operating company located near Saunders-Roe's East Cowes facility.

[4] In June 1965, following an initial series of trials, the SR.N6 prototype was delivered to Scandinavian Hovercraft Promotions of Oslo, Norway under the name 'Scanhover'; it was followed by a second craft later that same month.

[3] The SR.N6 had been designed in such a fashion that it could be extended from its initial 36 seat capacity to 58 without having to perform a major redesign or incurring high building costs.

[5] Work on the stretched SR.N6 was headed by Ray Wheeler, the chief designer of the British Hovercraft Corporation (BHC) - which Saunders-Roe had by then merged into.

[6] Perhaps the most substantial change on the stretched craft, beyond the increased length, was the adoption of a twin-propeller configuration, which was done in order to reduce tip speed and thus noise.

The SR.N6 was subsequently further stretched to accommodate a further 20 passengers; this capacity upgrade let to it being considered to be more viable for commercial operations than any previous hovercraft design.

[13] The endurance of the fingers would be progressively improved over time, issues with salt spray negatively affecting both the engine and propeller were also encountered early on.

These craft were later operated between Aarhus and Kalundborg in Denmark and, during February and March 1966, also successfully underwent cold weather trials in Sweden, in the Gulf of Bothnia.

[18] On 24 July 1965, British operator Hovertravel took delivery of its first SR.N6, placing it into service in the Solent area on a route between the Ryde Transport Interchange on the Isle of Wight and Southsea.

[20] British Rail, using the operating name of Seaspeed, started a hovercraft service using the SR.N6 across the Solent between Southampton and Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1965.

[24] In 1968, a single Hoverwork SR.N6 traversed a 2,400 km route of inhospitable jungle terrain within central South America, between Manaus, Brazil and Port of Spain, Trinidad, for a National Geographic scientific expedition.

[26] Prior to its introduction of the far-larger SR.N4 ('Mountbatten'-class), British Rail's hovercraft operating division, named Seaspeed, decided to adopt a pair of SR.N6s for route proving and information gathering purposes.

[27] In October 1966, Charles Brindle and several engineers surveyed several potential sites on both the British and French sides of the English Channel, using an SR.N6 to determine their suitability for the future SR.N4 service.

[28][29] In late 1971, the company stretched its SR.N6 to the larger Mk 1S standard and fitted more powerful Gnome engines to account for the increased payload.