Both Handley-Page and Avro had produced advanced designs for the bomber competition. These would be produced as the Victor and the Vulcan respectively; the Air Staff decided to award contracts to each company as a form of insurance in case one of these designs failed. The submissions became known as the V bombers, or V-class, with the aircraft all being given names that started with the letter "V". Vickers' submission had initially been rejected as not being as advanced as the Victor and the Vulcan, but Vickers' chief designer George Edwards lobbied the Air Ministry on the basis that it would be available much sooner than the competition, going so far as to promise that a flight-capable prototype would be flown by the end of 1951, that subsequent production aircraft would be flown prior to the end of 1953, and that serial deliveries would commence during early 1955. Gunston and Gilchrist observe that measures offered by Edwards were a "gigantic risk", and that gaining the bomber contract has been deemed of crucial importance to the future of aircraft manufacturing at Vickers.