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The Disappearance of the Ashtray

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Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#651

Post by wkat4242 »

bruce511 wrote: post #96
camillomiller wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking on planes is absolutely something I can't wrap my head around in any possible way. How the hell someone EVER thought it would be a good idea to let people smoke while packed inside a flying metal cylinder?

It's hard to imagine flying passengers as being a "startup", but it really only dates from around the 60s. Today I know of people who can't fly at all (because they can't stop smoking long enough.) even short flights of a couple hours are out of reach. (I was once on a 2 hour flight that took 6 hours for reasons, and some of the passengers fairly sprinted in the destination airport to get to a smoking area at 1am) So…

When air travel was in its infancy, banning smoking was just not something anyone would have even thought about. It was everywhere.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#652

Post by wkat4242 »

buildsjets wrote: post #549
cortic wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere that banning smoking on planes lead to a lot of deep vein thrombosis cases, as they didn't need to swap the air out as much leading to higher c02 levels. But stupid shortsightedness aside; it was crazy, they needed to put the smokers (which was me at the time) at the back of the plane as that's the direction of the airflow inside, but the toilets were at the back so everyone had to walk through the s…

BuildsJets here with your aviation trivia. Cabin Air Quality requirements generally have become a lot more stringent since they were first enacted back in December 1964. Previously, only the crew was required to be supplied with fresh air, the rest of the cabin was required to be "ventilated" but no ventilation rate was specified, so it was frequently turned off to save fuel or increase power. (This is approved and i…

> Previously, only the crew was required to be supplied with fresh air, the rest of the cabin was required to be "ventilated" but no ventilation rate was specified, so it was frequently turned off to save fuel or increase power. (This is approved and is still done on some older generation aircraft that are still in service, for instance the Boeing 737NG for certain high performance situations, search 737 Packs Off Takeoff)

How does that work though? The cabin pressurization requires constant bleed air from the engines because there are intentional leaks. So the air is constantly renewed anyway.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#653

Post by wkat4242 »

xwolfi wrote: post #456
Stratoscope wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking or non? Looks like you're about 25 years younger than me. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a nonsmoking section. Of course you could smoke, anywhere! Us kids didn't get real tobacco cigarettes, but we always had candy cigarettes so we could "smoke" along with the grown-ups. https://www.google.com/search?q=candy+cigarette&tbm=isch One difference from today was that our candy cigarettes had brand na…

Im a smoker, and damn the plane story sounds terrifying. In fact Im smoking now, in my bathroom next to a loud exhaust fan because my wife isn't here. A far cry from when my dad used to smoke next to me while I was doing my homework :D In fact in my city, Hong Kong, they are now under 10% of the population smoking, and on the street, when I smoke at the ashtray reserved for that on top of the public trashes (yeah, it…

I'm surprised people are so judgmental there. In my experience (having worked a lot with tourists) Chinese people were noticeably inconsiderate in public, like farting, spitting in public etc. Maybe I'm generalizing but there really was a noticeable pattern.

I think it's surprising that this is such a hangup for them especially outdoors.

I've never smoked but I don't mind if people do and I find all the health and safety rules a bit annoying these days. I miss the smokey boozy bars way after closing time. These days everything is so clean and regulated.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#654

Post by ajolly »

larve wrote: post #453
chongli wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to ban smokers to ban smoking on a sub. Smokers don't have to smoke, they merely choose to do so.

This narrow view of addiction is also missing the fact that smoking has many positive effects. I smoked from age 13 to age 38, and I’m pretty sure smoking made my life better overall. Besides allowing me to socialize more easily, it’s an incredibly potent stress reliever which allowed me to deal with sensory overload and other stressors (I’m autistic). Nothing comes even close to how quickly it can defuse stressful s…

Is the benefit specific to cigarettes, or does gum/lozenges give you the same stress benefit reduction?

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#655

Post by foobarbecue »

cortic wrote: post #640
foobarbecue wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A carbon dioxide - DVT link? Sure sounds like bunk. Please be careful of spreading medical misinformation.

I can't find the original article, but from Wikipedia( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_vein_thrombosis ) [inflammation has been identified as playing a clear causal role] and studies( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20387988/ ) ironically tobacco studies, of 5% CO2 show an inflammatory response. Another poster here cited 3% was be the safe limit, so its feasible that turning the system off to save money could put…

That's talking about lack of oxygen in your blood, not in the air.

I have a lot of experience working long days in a high CO2 environment (did my PhD working in volcanic ice caves). IIRC OSHA rules say 5000ppm (0.5%) is the limit for a 40 hr work week (that's more than 10x atmospheric). There is no way CO2 on planes is getting over 1%--- that would cause a lot of health problems. DVT would not be one of them.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#656

Post by wkat4242 »

Freak_NL wrote: post #397
netsharc wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The train station smoking ban is only a few years old, it used to be a lot worse, you get off the train and many people would be smoking (either their last cigarette before the ride, or their first after getting off). Nowadays it's just a few people who ignore the rules, without consequences.

Yeah, that was one of the things that struck me as so weird coming from the Netherlands when I was on holiday in Switzerland. While the Netherlands was already on track to ban smoking on the actual train platforms as well at that time, arriving at the central station of Zurich was really something else. Smokers everywhere, in a country that was so orderly in most other respects. > Nowadays it's just a few people who…

Most COPD sufferers are heavy smokers themselves :) This is how they got COPD in fact. In the Netherlands it's pretty standard in pensioner's housing.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#657

Post by dredmorbius »

masklinn wrote: post #275
bruce511 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine flying passengers as being a "startup", but it really only dates from around the 60s. Today I know of people who can't fly at all (because they can't stop smoking long enough.) even short flights of a couple hours are out of reach. (I was once on a 2 hour flight that took 6 hours for reasons, and some of the passengers fairly sprinted in the destination airport to get to a smoking area at 1am) So…

> It's hard to imagine flying passengers as being a "startup", but it really only dates from around the 60s. It’s more than 30 years older. The first commercial airline opened around the start of WW1, and most major airlines (western at least) were founded in the 20s. The 60s is the effective start of the jet age.

There was some commercial air travel prior to the ... 1980s ... but it was niche. Prior to 1960 was effectively nil.

Really, widespread air travel is that recent:

https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter5/air-transpo...>

1980: ~1,000 billion passenger/km.

2019: ~8,500 billion passenger/km.

Global population's increased, but by less than 2x.

If you go back to 1960, the chart is stuck to the floor.

I've had a call out for further stats with no responses yet:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34499787>

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#658

Post by retrac »

pigsty wrote: post #255
PaulRobinson wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an ex-smoker, I'd ask you to consider it as about the most addictive thing going. Think of something you really, really like doing. Something that calms or pleases you every time you do it. Like, playing a game, or reading a book, or eating your favourite food. Now imagine someone telling you that you don't have to do that, it's just a choice. Imagine being deprived of it and being guilt-tripped into it. Sure you…

I mean, unless as a child you had abusive parents who forced you to smoke, it’s absolutely a choice. There are people who can’t stop doing stupid stuff for attention (like breaking electronics for YouTube views or whatever), and we don’t blame “idiots” commenting online for their habits. There are people who refuse to eat vegetables and only eat junk food and we also don’t blame “idiots.” Yes. It’s addictive. But per…

> I mean, unless as a child you had abusive parents who forced you to smoke, it’s absolutely a choice.

My mother started at 11. It's actually very typical for a smoker to start around that young. Many drug addicts are first exposed to the drug before their minds are anywhere nearly developed. They never had a chance to make anything like an informed adult choice. It's one of the saddest aspects of it.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#659

Post by dredmorbius »

yencabulator wrote: post #629
Marsymars wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won’t smoking in an airplane bathroom set off an alarm?

Yes. The person triggering the alarm will still likely look for a place to extinguish the cigarette, and pretend they've done nothing wrong. The ashtray thing is there because otherwise those idiots will put the burning cigarette in the trash or in the tank with chemicals in which it might just cause a pile-up of debris and clogs.

I'd put this a bit differently, though with the same general idea:

- The alarm will alert flight attendants to the situation, allow them to identify the violator of the non-smoking regulation, of the potentially hazardous situation (open flame in an aircraft), and if necessary bar the person from future flights.

- The ashtray will likely prevent a lit cigarette from burning down the aircraft in flight if improperly disposed of with, say, dry paper trash.

A smouldering cigarette in a rubbish bin could imperil the entire flight, passenger manifest, and crew.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#660

Post by buildsjets »

wkat4242 wrote: post #652
buildsjets wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BuildsJets here with your aviation trivia. Cabin Air Quality requirements generally have become a lot more stringent since they were first enacted back in December 1964. Previously, only the crew was required to be supplied with fresh air, the rest of the cabin was required to be "ventilated" but no ventilation rate was specified, so it was frequently turned off to save fuel or increase power. (This is approved and i…

> Previously, only the crew was required to be supplied with fresh air, the rest of the cabin was required to be "ventilated" but no ventilation rate was specified, so it was frequently turned off to save fuel or increase power. (This is approved and is still done on some older generation aircraft that are still in service, for instance the Boeing 737NG for certain high performance situations, search 737 Packs Off Ta…

The cabin air pressure requirement (psi) is more or less a constant, but the cabin air flow rate requirement (lbm/min) is a variable which depends on the number of passengers on board, the air temperature conditioning requirements, the cargo being carried, the altitude (outside air pressure), and the age/condition of the aircraft. (Things like rubber door seals are not perfect and develop leakage rates over time. Sometimes you can even hear it if you are near the door.) The engine pressure regulating/shutoff valve and the cabin outflow valve position are regulated by the pilot (legacy aircraft) or by the digital cabin pressure control system (current aircraft) to maintain the required flow and pressure (cabin altitude setting).

In ye olden days before a DCPCS, not only were the flow requirements not as stringent, but there was culture of "cheating the chart" when manually setting the system. More airflow = more fuel burn, and at one time pilots were compensated for minimizing fuel burn. Anyone can see that this is a perverse incentive from a safety standpoint, just look at what former astronaut Hoot Gibson did to the passengers on his 727 trying to save a buck and playing flight test pilot with paying passengers onboard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_841_(1979)

Also, from a cabin crew perspective, drowsy passengers are conveniently compliant passengers.

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