
The only time smoking caused me any concern in an aircraft was one day up in my glider: I was nicely settled down and thought, 'Time for a smoke'
I had to close the clearview panels and the front ventilator in the canopy or the draft would blow out the match.
After getting the pipe going nicely, I shook out the match (or thought that I had; a match flame is virtually invisible in blazing sunlight) and pushed the 'dead' match back into the full box of Swan matches which ignited the whole box

Thinking 'clucking bell' I held onto it until it stopped flaring (by then you couldn't see six inches in the cockpit)
I managed to claw open one of the clearview panels and hurled the blazing box out with as much force as possible.
I flew on 'normally' for about 20 minutes until the 'sphincter twitter' subsided and landed.
As I taxied to a stop, a number of the flying club members rushed over to me and asked if I was OK ?
surprised, I said 'yes, why do you ask' ?
Apparently, I had been crossing the airfield during this 'drama' and what they had seen was a huge plume of smoke as I opened the clearview panel, followed by a ball of fire.
They said 'We thought you had been hit by flack'

I bought myself a lighter
