Simon Hargreaves spent 20 years in the Royal Navy as a Sea Harrier pilot 1996 as Commanding Officer of 899 NAS. He completed ETPS in 1987 and, during his tour at Boscombe Down, was involved in the flight test programmes of Harrier, Jaguar and Tornado..
He joined BAES at Dunsfold as a company test pilot and quickly became involved in the Joint Strike Fighter programme, which took him out to Lockheed Martin Skunk works to participate in the X-35 Concept Demonstrator Aircraft programme. Simon flew the X-35A and X-35C before performing the first flight and all subsequent envelope expansion flying on the X-35B STOVL aircraft.
On return to the UK he became DCTP at the BAES Warton where he participated in the flight test programmes of Typhoon, Tornado, Harrier and Hawk. He remains active in the Royal Navy Reserve Air Branch, initially flying Sea Harrier and now the Hawk. He has 7,000 hrs on a large variety of types, including around 850 hrs on the Hunter.