The English city of Coventry has seen better days. Once known as the UK’s motor city, the settlement of about 400,000 people in England’s Midlands has been left struggling for an identity by decades of slumping auto output that followed widespread destruction from World War II bombing.
This spring, however, Coventry is once again at the forefront of world-leading innovation in personal mobility as it hosts what is billed as the first-ever fully functional hub for flying taxis, the electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing craft that backers are talking up as the biggest new thing in aviation.
The site is fully functional, that is, apart from the air taxis themselves. With the scores of proposed eVTOL models yet to win regulatory signoff, unmanned drones are standing in for the typically five-person craft during three weeks of demonstration flights in Coventry.