After all these tales of disastrous happenings to cockpit smokers, how about
a funny one:

Many many years ago I had a syndicate Olympia. One of the members was an
inveterate smoker who persisted in smoking while flying. We tried to
dissuade him, what with all that wood and dope around, but he carried on
doing it. He had the last laugh though. One day he set off on a Silver
distance attempt from our airfield near Stoke on Trent, heading east in a
blustery westerly blowing about 30kts. He was seen to climb to about 3000ft
and disappeared over the horizon while doing it. Nothing was heard for quite
some time, till we got a phone call (no mobiles or radio in those days)
saying he had landed out near Nottingham, not Leicester East which he had
declared. When we got to him it turned out that, due to his speed over the
ground, at no time during the flight had he any idea how far he had gone or
indeed where he was, because in the confines of the somewhat cramped Oly
cockpit he wasn't able to open his map properly and had torn it trying.
Eventually he had looked down and there below him he saw a building which
seemed very familiar. He circled round it and when the penny dropped, he
remembered where he had seen this building before. At that time (the 1960s)
the firm that made his ciggys (the W H & D O Wills outfit which included
the famous Philip as a member) printed a picture of Nottingham Castle on the
back of their cigarette packets ('cos that was where they were made). He
fished out his fag packet, and sure enough he now knew exactly where he was
and it was far enough for Silver. It was impossible to stop him taking his
fags with him thereafter.

Alistair Wright
Melrose