Behind every breakthrough aircraft is a team of engineers who turn ambitious ideas into working systems.

For HYDRA-400, that responsibility sits with lead engineer, Alfie Lockrey.

Alfie combines deep academic expertise with a lifetime of hands-on engineering. From building and flying RC aircraft as a teenager to graduating top of his cohort in Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Southampton, his focus has always been the same: understanding how complex machines actually work in the real world.

After starting his career at MBDA, working on complex systems integration, he joined Hybrid Drones and now leads the engineering effort behind HYDRA-400. That means overseeing the modelling, design, testing and tuning of the aircraft as it moves from concept to operational capability.

Programmes like ours succeed because of the people behind them. HYDRA-400 is being built by engineers who combine deep technical thinking with practical experience of making things fly.

And Alfie is right at the centre of it.