UK Hosts 'World's First' Hub For Drones, Future Flying Taxis

A pop-up urban port for delivery drones -- and one day, potentially flying taxis -- launched Monday in Britain, lifting a box of prosecco for a brief celebratory test flight hailed as groundbreaking. Air-One, a so-called "vertiport" for drones and future electric vehicles taking off and landing vertically, was proclaimed as the first of its kind by proponents and heralding a new era of low-emission futuristic air transport. Based in Coventry, a former car manufacturing powerhouse in central England, the site will be used for a month-long showcase of the burgeoning industry. The inaugural flight symbolically lifted the six-bottle box of sparkling wine, weighing around 12 kilograms, from the launch pad. The commercial drone used -- Malloy Aeronautics' T150, on loan from its day job doing logistics for the British military -- is the largest ever to fly in such an urban environment, according to Ricky Sandhu, founder and executive chairman of Urban-Air Port, the British firm behind the vertiport venture.