SCOTT has been reading about electric planes flying from Exeter Airport, here he explains why he thinks this is a good thing.
I’M sometimes lost for words when I think how far we have come in just a few decades. We have come up with a fair few positive solutions to create a more sustainable future. I could never have imagined we would have zero carbon homes, a divestment in plastic, household recycling, domestic electricity from offshore wind turbines, and a return to wildflower meadows in my lifetime. When I was one of 60 or so people to vote Green in Exeter in the late Eighties we still had visible air pollution and very fossil fuel dependent lives. My older relatives spoke of the Smog of the 1950s and wearing gas masks around London. I can recall my walks to school in the lead filled 80’s and feeling ill from the exhaust fumes, or living in a village where a thick pall of smoke settled over the streetlights most winters smelling like we had a coal fired power station nearby, and engulfing my lungs as I pedalled off to meet my mates. I remember when petrol went unleaded in 1989, and when we were told air pollution from exhaust fumes killed more than twice as many people as road accidents in Britain. Since then we’ve been cleaning up our act. Winter nights are no longer thick with the smell of coal, and walking besides roads (I don’t drive) gets better and better with more hybrids taking to our roads. The buses in town had become electric even before lockdown brought a surplus of fresh air to Devon. As a child I used to dream of our skies being full of airships. I read with excitement the news that the UK’s first electric commuter flight is to take off from Exeter Airport, and host further test flights for the shift to greener aviation as a pilot for the Towards Zero Emissions in Regional Aircraft Operations programme – known as 2ZERO. The first hybrid-electric flight is due to take place this summer, with the first all-electric flight taking off next year. The demonstration flights to Newquay Airport will be carried out using Ampaire’s six-seat Electric EEL aircraft and with a 19-seat Eco Otter, a hybrid-electric retrofit of the workhorse Twin Otter commuter aircraft. I was surprised to find myself as a greenie in favour of this. My standpoint on cars is we need much less of them, better public transport links and less vehicles on our roads. Since the pandemic we all know we don’t need so many face to face business meetings, and we know the advantages of walking or cycling to get about. A vehicle delivering food to many houses is better than many cars at the supermarket. The weekly shop has gone online and if you use local veg boxes less packaging too. Echoing the veg man who used to sell his wares street to street. Since I first winced at roadkill as a child I’ve wished that we didn’t have so many vehicles steaming along our roads. I’ve been hoping for hover cars, but they’re not realised yet. Planes I’m certain have less things they squish, and I’d fly electric rather than trains even though I hate flying in planes. I see another benefit of electric planes. I lived in the Pacific as a child and travelled the world, trained in tourism when I left school, and realise the vital need for tourism. The islands I grew up on did too, they were able to keep their culture and their way of life by making it a tourist attraction – dressing in grass skirts, painting their bodies and carrying bows and spears to delight the tourists. Then donning a tee shirt and shorts and a curry once the show was over. Rather like the traditional way of life we have here in the South West, tourism has helped to preserve it. It has stopped development of picturesque villages and areas of natural beauty – long before they were considered necessary to preserve. People came here to holiday to enjoy unspoilt Devon and that has preserved it, tourists wanted it unspoilt. Having a tourism industry meant we didn’t need to replace it with another industry. We can keep the campsites, the low impact caravan parks, the green spaces, the walks, the beaches, hotels, pubs and restaurants and the farmland and fisheries that provide for them. Keeping our nature wild and untamed meant people would come and experience it, and enjoy it and find wellbeing in it. Yes, we locals may complain when the roads are packed (remember changeover days?) – but now a year into this, we are all surely missing the bustle of holiday life. We’re not the only ones, all over the world there are tourist industries struggling to make ends meet. The air industry has seen the heaviest impact from the pandemic and this I hope will be a green recovery rather than just a return to business as usual. We definitely don’t need a return to the atmosphere stripping levels of plane traffic we had pre-pandemic. These flights to demonstrate the effective use of hybrid-electric aircraft on regional routes is a fantastic start. I’d rather see a couple of electric planes criss crossing the skies full of people than hundreds of cars. It’s not quite like the sky of my childhood dreams and a myriad of different airships, but it’s getting there. It’s predicted the use of hybridelectric planes would reduce carbon emissions by up to 70%, with the next stage being zero-emission all-electric aircraft and for us cleaner air.