Founded in 1918 by Ryosuke Namiki, a professor at the Tokyo Merchant Marine College, with the idea of ​​improving the fountain pens of the time and with the help of Masao Wada, began to market pens from his company The Namiki Manufacturing Company, a name that would last until 1938 there it changed to The Pilot Pen Co., Ltd. until 1989 where it acquired the current one, The Pilot Corporation.

Pilot introduced in 1964 the capless, one of its emblematic models, which still continues to evolve today giving pieces such as the LS Capless.

Pilot models can have "proper" names, such as the Custom Urushi, or they can be named by a series of numbers. The first two of these figures would correspond to the years from the founding in 1918 to the launch of the fountain pen in question, so the Pilot Custom 823 (the vacuum-loading model) would have been on the market in the year 2000. The third digit shows the launch price in multiples of 1000 yen.

Pilot is the company that owns Namiki, which we can also find on inktraveler, specializing in pieces with Urushi lacquer and maki-e artisan work.

Like Sailor, Pilot has sought that its pens can satisfy the most varied customers, for this it has up to 15 different variations in strokes, from the extra-fine Posting or waverly and the flexible Falcon to the Musical or Sutab. It is appreciated that, in the XXI century, they continue to pay attention handwriting lovers.