(CNN Business) Everyone has to start somewhere, and air taxis are no exception.

Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, said it completed the first flight of its autonomous air taxi Tuesday at a small airport outside Washington, DC. No one was on board.

The flight lasted less than a minute, according to Boeing, and it didn't actually go anywhere. Instead, it hovered above the runway. Boeing declined to share how high above the ground it flew.

But Boeing is hailing the achievement as a milestone for its NeXt division, which develops autonomous airplanes.

The flying car prototype is 30 feet long and 28 feet wide. It's designed to fly up to 50 miles at a time.

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