Private Pilot Flight Training and Instruction Flight Training Article Library | Back To 4VFR.COM Smoking 1.A smoker of 1 and 1/2 packs a day, will ingest into his lungs a radiation level of 8000 millirem just from cigarettes in one year. 2. 500 millirem annually is the top of the "safe limit" for nuclear workers. 3. Such a smoker exceeds the safe limit by 16 times. This is equivalent to 300 chest X-rays a year. 4. The radio active residue from cigarette smoke (radium-226, radon-222, lead 210, and poloniun-210) remain in the lungs as ....hot spots for up to five years. 5. If you are with smokers for one hour you are breathing in the equivalent one cigarette, radiation and all. 6. A smoker starts a sea-level flight at 3000' 7. The pilot who smokes is a hazard to himself and other pilots. 8. Smoking exacerbates the negative effects of altitude, carbon monoxide, and lack of fluids. 9. The probability of becoming a pulmonary cripple and not being able to fly, alone makes it worthwhile stopping. 10. One cigarette is supposed to take four minutes off your expected life span, think how much flying you won't do. 11. I expect the day to come when smokers will be unable to become pilots. 12. At a given age (any age) 11 smokers die for every non-smoker who dies. 13. The smoker, on the average, dies 10 years before the average non-smoker who dies. 14. Every 53 seconds in the U.S. a smoker either quits smoking or quits breathing. 15. The peripheral vision of the smoker is reduced by approximately 39% from what normally would be available. Written by Gene Whitt Flight Training Article Library | Back To 4VFR.COM