Smoking on ops

I’ve been viewing the old TV series 12 O’ clock High (1964-67), and being from those non-PC days, characters do smoke in the series.
In some episodes, the control wheels of the studio B-17 (said to be a real fuselage section) have ashtrays clipped onto the back of the control wheel.
They certainly look like aircraft-grade items, anyone know if the Fortress did indeed have such items?

Well, what a fascinating thread that turned into! Thanks everyone.

Always thought that this was a great pic. The one having a fly puff looks like the only one that doesn’t know this is being taken ! Least of their worries I would expect !

In the chapter on 50 Squadron and the 1000 Bomber Raid in Max Hasting’s ‘Bomber Command’ he mentions a Manchester/Lancaster pilot called Tolley Taylor who unsurprisingly got through 40 cigarettes on the way out and 20 more coming back. When the odds were so high against them surviving, the health risks involved seemed trivial.

Smoking in flight

Got an entry in the RAF Woodbridge ORB of the ‘arrival’ there of a Mustang whose pilot had suffered facial burns from trying to light a cigarette.

Also in one of the books about 6 Group, there’s a story where an airman watching a nearby Halifax saw it explode just after he’d seen a tiny flame in the mid-upper turret which he concluded was probably the mid-upper gunner lighting up and igniting petrol fumes.

Also saw a mention once of a 214 Sqn Fortress pilot who chain-smoked his way through ops.

Ian

Think he was on full oxygen and it was the oil in margarine so they had to use butter. Long time ago 😮 but they used marg one day, found a link to confirm I’m not going mad.. I just got them the wrong way round 😀

http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/370663-my-lips-fire.html

Saywha..?

Since the gas wasn’t compressed in the mask, why would butter be a problem – unless the sandwich had some mustard on it too…??? 🙂

I seem to remember a pilot burnt when they had used margarine in his sandwiches and it was around his mouth when he put his mask back on.

Corrected product.

I read an accident report a while back of a B-45 Tornado that was badly damaged by the Rear Gunner (I think) having a smoke on full Oxygen.

He was badly burned not surprisingly. The report has a whole load of parping about the dangers of smoking with full oxygen about, but not whilst flying.

Accident would have been early 1950’s.

RAF C130 smoking in the 1960’s & 1970’s

British C-130’s used to have ashtrays and no smoking signs!

If you wanted a smoke on a herc you went up to the flightdeck and sat on the bed for a good puff. there was no smoking in the cargo hold :rolleyes:

May 1940

Stanley Grant claimed a shared probable, possibly in conjunction with Flying Officer George Proudman who also fired at one of the Dorniers, but was then struck by return fire from one of it’s gunners, wounding him in the leg, the bullet passing clean through and ending up in his parachute pack. Stanley wrote of his colleague:
‘George Proudman was one of the stalwarts of the squadron; he used to smoke his pipe in the cockpit while climbing to gain height, a
foolhardy thing to do but amusing at the time. Always the joker he kept our spirits up when things were looking black but we finally lost him early in July. I think, when the convoy attacks started in the first phase of the Battle of Britain. I was on a few days leave at the time when the whole of Green section failed to return. Had I been there I would probably not be writing this letter because I always flew in that section.’
Air Battle For Dunkirk. Norman Franks. (Grub Street 2000)

re;

didnt Adolf Galland have wing mirrors and a cigar box in his aircraft? Is it true he was told to remove them and said he would if told to by the Fuhrer?

Yup used to go sit on the flight deck of the Herc for a ciggie, not bad if the crew don’t mind, but when you have a squadron of guys down the back it must have been a pain for them, , on the VC10 used to sit doing runs, ciggie in hand, feet up on the centre console 😀

When the Neptune came into RAF service the cockpit was equipped with ashtrays and a clock, both were removed, when queried why they had taken the excellent and useful clock out, the RAF’s reply was, that’s why we issue you with RAF Watches.

Left the RAF in January 89 and my new year resolution was to give up smoking at the same time, never touched one since.

British C-130’s used to have ashtrays and no smoking signs!

When the Hercules first entered service there was a sign saying “Smoking permitted on the flight deck” on the overhead panel.

Permission to smoke was usually given by the captain, sometimes using the expression, “Gentlemen, we are now First Class”. We did have a Station Commander who was not popular on the flight deck as he was a non-smoker, and never gave the “lighting up” call.

Perhaps he should have been on board a Herc flight in the Middle East where the navigator forgot to turn off his oxygen supply before lighting up 😀

We NEVER smoked ‘down the back’ :rolleyes:

Doubt if there’d be any evidence left

I suppose in these days of elf & safety + the current social attitude against smoking it seems inconceivable to us that crews smoked whilst flying surrounded by high octane fuel and oxygen etc – but that’s what recording history is all about. Although it seems pretty conclusive that crews did smoke in the cockpit, I don’t recall any incidents where this lead directly to a loss?

Pilot’s ashtray recovered from A-26 Invader 43-22336

British C-130’s used to have ashtrays and no smoking signs!

C-17s have both as well. When I was flying on Herks we used to have guys go to the cargo ramp and pull the seal off of the door drain. Then they’d put a seat rod (hollow tube) over the drain hole and light up a smoke. The vacume on the seat rod would pull the smoke right out of the airplane. On the C-17 everybody would just pull the seal away from the escape hatch and let the smoke out. The screeching of the pressure leak was irritating as hell but it kept the smoke outside.

As do Russian AF An-12’s……

An-12, taken at Tver in 2007…..

Ken

C-17s have ashtrays in them.

British C-130’s used to have ashtrays and no smoking signs!

Presumed.

At that time most people smoked. It was free, and the health hazards were the least of folks problems.
It’d be fair to say it was commonplace below ten thousand feet when they were not on oxygen.
I know Thunderbolts had ashtrays, so I’d think that they were pretty commonplace in US a/c, but can’t recalll seeing them in any a/c of British origin.