Pilot Health: I've come a long way, baby!

Classy, Vintage and Bad Ass! Oh the glamor of the cigarette.

 In most classic films smoking was a given. I am fan of them all, especially 1940's classics, Rod Serling, and Alfred Hitchcock. As I recall it, nearly every coffee table or desk on film was graced with a classy ashtray/dispenser and cigarettes would be offered to visitors as easily as one would offer someone a coffee in today’s world. So popular was smoking, that the sound of  lighter clicks on-screen can almost be said to rival the passage of film slides.  I guess you can say this is where I first fell in love with the idea of smoking.

(Image via Wikimedia: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VeronicaFoster-RonnieBrenGunGirl-smoke.jpg)

I like to romanticize my dreams – and as a young girl I wanted to be that vintage vixen with a handsome man at her side just waiting to light her cigarette. When candy cigarettes were still popular, I would sneak them into the stash of candy my mom agreed to buy me, and then I'd practice the two-fingered hold with matching head-tilt, imagining myself in MY own version of film noir. This lasted as long as it took for my mom to find out and, Ohhh the lecture I got! It didn't take me long to agree with her version of “smoking is bad,” as I soon found out I had a physical repulsion to cigarette smoke. I still liked the idea though.

Lingerie model, wearing a girdle and strapless bra, smoking in an office; in the background a woman sits at a desk. Photograph from assignment Chicago: city of contrasts, by Stanley Kubrick while he was a staff photographer for LOOK magazine, 1949. Via Wikimedia.

Well...I guess my mind is stronger than my body, because by the time I was seventeen I started to practice the art of cigarette smoking. I bought classic WWII lighters and slim gold cases. I smoked Chesterfields, Lucky Strikes, Camels, and Virginia Slims. Later I would graduate to the expensive imported brands – ones wrapped in brown paper or shimmery pearl, gold-leaf trimmed and pastel-colored. The popularity of the cigarette was on a downturn. I figured it was about time for it to make a comeback, and I'd be on the upswing of that comeback with the full advantage of a vintage appeal. I never expected to get addicted.

Many years later, now as a pilot, I had to rethink my romanticism of the cigarette. Smoking and flying may have had its history, but they're not necessarily the best cockpit companions(Pilots and Smoking).  Also, for the type of flying I want to do, stopping for a smoke may not be an option. I don't want anything holding me back.  However,the idea of re-imagining “smoking” is hard. After all, WWII (my favorite era) was all about cigarettes.

According to Tobacco History cigarette sales boomed just as the industry of aviation also started to take off here in the United States due to the war.  

•            "1939-1945: WORLD WAR II 

As part of the war effort, Roosevelt makes tobacco a protected crop. General Douglas McArthur makes the corncob pipe his trademark by posing with it on dramatic occasions such as his wading ashore during the invasion and reconquest of the Philippines. Cigarettes are included in GI's C-Rations. Tobacco companies send millions of free cigarettes to GI's, mostly the popular brands; the home front had to make do with off-brands like Rameses or Pacayunes. Tobacco consumption is so fierce a shortage develops. By the end of the war, cigarette sales are at an all-time high." 

This newsreel shows just how valuable cigarettes had become:

Attribution: Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid [CC-BY-SA-3.0-nl www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

• English Tranlation: Newsreels in which Dutch subjects of a certain week are presented. During World War II several persons in Breda offered there help to the allied pilots that were stranded. One of these pilots has now send a supply of cigarettes as a thank-you. The American ambassador, dr. H. Baruch, hands them out. SHOTS: - ext. and int. of the hiding-places of pilotes and other rooms that were used by the Dutch resistance; - Dutch militairy policeman shows the border post where he handed over pilots to the Belgian underground during the war; - the cigarettes are handed out by Baruch in the town hall in the presence of mayor C.A. Prinsen; - one of the pilot helpers, mrs. Überfeld, receives flowers from Baruch.

The movie industry made cigarettes seductive, the print world glamorized them. The war, well it made cigarettes the past-time of heroes. A month ago I decided it was finally time for me to retire these images to their rightful place -- the glory days of the past.


I've quit three times before. This time was definitely the hardest. Herbal cigarettes helped before, but this time I call my "Pilot and the Patch" success.  Through a combination of a nicotine patch, exercise and my friends at Oakland Acupuncture Project I was able to finally kick the habit. Note: the patch can give you very vivid dreams, and for the two weeks I was on it I was very tired. So if your a pilot, you may want to take a break from flying for the time you are on the patch.

Are you a pilot that smokes or know another pilot that does? What about your thoughts on cigarettes, smoking and the 1940's?  Share your thoughts.