Autonomous Flight designs and manufactures autonomous passenger drones (APD), and is based in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Founded by Martin Warner, the company joins a growing number of entrepreneurial groups combining drone hardware and “software-based technologies” to provide rapid point-to-point transportation. Warner envisions a wide range of drone-based, battery-powered air vehicles for both commercial and private use, which he calls the “new gold rush in transportation and aviation”. Autonomous Flight’s website promotes the familiar arguments for rising above gridlock. The firm’s commercial notes the average American commuter spends 3.5 hours trapped in traffic every month. The answer is the Y6S, a two-passenger drone that will whisk you from London-Heathrow to Charing Cross Station in only 12 minutes, cruising at 300 to 1,500 feet above terra firma at 70 mph. Either trip would take about an hour by car. Martin Warner, the “serial entrepreneur” some have dubbed Britain’s Elon Musk, holds forth in a BBC interview. He …