Lovins: Claims are outdated on wingspans
An anonymous ghostwriter “on behalf of” Bill Stirling, John Bennett, and Auden Schendler (Sep. 5) wants our airfield redesigned for bigger planes but can’t explain why. The airlines don’t want them. We don’t need their crowding. We couldn’t exclude old, dirty, noisy models. So the ghostwriter airbrushes them out, substituting the claim that cleaner, more efficient planes need longer wings.
That old story became false four years ago when newer technology for extremely smooth airflow got even better efficiency with shorter wings — for example, a stubby 52-foot wingspan but Aspen-London range using one-eighth the fuel. I immediately notified the BOCC and newspaper readers then detailed Aspen-compatible regional-jet designs. Crickets. The website of the Coalition (which the signatories co-lead) still features their outdated wingspan claim four times, in reckless disregard for truth.
Superefficient regional planes fitting our airfield and serving 5,000-plus US airports will be perfect for rapidly emerging electric or hydrogen propulsion. More fossil-free planes are now on global order, $118 billion worth, than the fossil-fueled planes they’ll outcompete. They’ll make obsolete not just Sustainable Aviation Fuel (as the writers say), but also the planes it fuels. They’ll be extremely clean and quiet. The county has blocked all this evidence for 23 months.
We were long told there are no alternative modern regional jets — like United just ordered, ensuring commercial service for decades. Now the Pitkin County Board of Commissioners insists there’s no alternative to FAA grants — like the much larger $879-million FBO deal just offered. What part of “Both pillars of your case just collapsed” don’t Stirling, Bennett, and Schendler get? Why can’t they provide the accurate facts that citizens deserve? And why do they imagine that the new runway, terminal, and transit that everyone agrees our airport needs must come with unrelated and undesired bigger planes that they don’t dare mention?
Amory Lovins, Aspen Fly Right president
Old Snowmass
