Pilot (pen company)

In 1915, Ryōsuke Namiki (並木良輔), a professor from Tokyo Nautical College in Japan, left his job to find a small factory near Tokyo to produce gold pen nibs.[2] In 1916, Namiki expanded his product line and became a full-fledged manufacturer of writing instruments.[2]

The Pilot Pen Corporation was founded by Ryosuke Namiki with Masao Wada (和田正雄) in 1918 under the name of the Namiki Manufacturing Company.[2]

In 1926 it established overseas offices in Malaysia, Singapore, Boston, London and Shanghai. In 1938 the name of the company changed to the Pilot Pen Co., Ltd. It was again renamed in 1950 as the Pilot Ink Company, Ltd. In 1954 a branch was opened in Brazil. From 1972 to 1999 various sub-companies were formed to cover the various branches, and the collective name for these is Pilot Corporation. More recently, Pilot began the BeGreen line—pens and pencils composed of mostly recycled content.

In 1995 and 1996, they raced a Ferrari F40 LM at The 24 Hours Of Le Mans. The racing team that entered the F40 LM was at first named Pilot-Aldix Racing, but was soon named under Pilot Pen Racing and Pilot Racing. It won at the 4 Hours of Anderstorp and finished 12th at Le Mans.

In 2018 Pilot celebrated the company's 100th anniversary with a number of special pages to its website and special edition pens.[3]

In 1963,[4] Pilot Corporation introduced the Capless. Unlike other fountain pens during its time, the Pilot Capless featured a fully retractable nib. The Capless was later reintroduced as the Vanishing Point in 1972. In 2012, the company released the Metropolitan (known as Cocoon in Japan), a popular entry-level fountain pen. The Varsity is a disposable fountain pen that is pre-loaded with ink, while the Prera is a smaller pocket pen. Other offerings include the Pilot Falcon, which has a semi-flexible gold nib.

Some of Pilot’s higher-end pens bear the name of "Custom" or "Custom Heritage" and a two or three digit number. "Custom" models are cigar-shaped, while "Custom Heritage" models have flat tops and bottoms. The number is based on the year of introduction (from the foundation of the company—the Custom 74 was introduced in 1992) for models with two digits, while the third digit on models with three digits represents a list price when multiplied by ¥10,000 (the Custom 823 was introduced in 2000 and cost ¥30,000 at the time of introduction).

Pilot Corporation published some ecological facts about its pens in 2015.[5] The most eco-friendly is the Bottle-2-Pen (B2P) which is made of 90.4% recycled components. [6] PET plastic from bottles are used for much of it, so it is sometimes nicknamed the 'PetPen' or 'PetBall'.

The brand manufactures and commercialises a wide range of products under its own name and other brands, such as FriXion (erasable ink gel pens), Acroball (hybrid ink ballpoint pens) , Pintor, B2P and Begreen (both, products with recycled components).[7] Some popular sub brands are Better (oil-based ballpoint), Precise, Hi-Tecpoint (rollerballs), Hi-Tec-C, G-2, Juice (or Pop'lol) (gel pens) and Coleto (multi-pen system).

The following table contains the Pilot product lines in Asia, Europe, and North and South America, as of December 2019:[8]

• 
  Pilot Petit1 fountain pen.
• 
  Dr. Grip gel pen.
• 
  A 0.25 mm Pilot Hi-Tec-C gel pen used to take very compact class notes.
• 
  FriXion erasable pens whose gel ink becomes transparent by erasing-friction heat; "When you rub the ink with the hard rubber eraser, heat from the resulting friction causes a temperature-sensing compound to activate an acid compounds, thus neutralizing the dye."[9]
• 
  G-2 ball pen
• 
  FriXion ball pen
• 
  B2P Bottle-2-Pen 90% Recycled Ballpoint PetPen

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• Official website (global)