Our patented VTOL solution for military autonomous last-mile resupply is a flexible, compact and reconfigurable, heavy-lift hybrid drone (electric + micro jet turbines). Our goal is to autonomously carry a payload of 100 kg (NATO half-pallet: one cubic metre volume, via an under-slung cargo net), over a range of 8 km (5 miles), within 10 minutes. Our novel design allows for the carriage of smaller payloads, out to a return range of 32 km.

Hydra was founded in Oct 2019, and since then it has established excellent links with the search and rescue community, particularly the RNLI and HM Coastguard. One of our key use cases is ship-to-shore (ship-to-ship (platform)) resupply. Also of potential interest would be a rescue at sea capability.

From 1992 to 2014, floods, droughts and storms affected 4.2 billion people (95% of all people affected by disasters) and caused US$1.3 trillion worth of damage. The first quarter of 2020 has seen both wild fires in Australia and floods in the UK, in addition to the Corona Virus impact. Hydra's capability is perfectly suited to providing large amounts of emergency supplies, to desperate people, in difficult to reach locations.

Our Hydra platform is ideally suited to short-range high-mass, high-volume payloads. Typically found in the mining industry, whereby large vehicles may require heavy replacement parts delivered over difficult terrain, under great time pressure.

The high-rise construction industry typically requires large cranes built on site. These are expensive, dangerous (wind) and static. Our heavy-lift platform is much more dynamic, flexible and cost effective; being able to cope with varying payloads.

The ship (or platform) to shore and vice versa, is a new and rapidly growing area of the drone delivery market. The key enabler is the ability to rapidly move large, heavy items over relatively short distances within minutes, rather than hours or days.