My Fountain Pen Usage

Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed myself grabbing for and using my fountain pens less in general and especially at work. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them because I do, it’s that I am limited to when I can use them at work which where nearly all the writing I do is done. The only time I can use a fountain pen when I am in the aircraft is when I am copying down the data for landing (weather, what approach is in use, landing speeds, gate assignment, etc) onto the landing data card which, surprisingly, handles fountain pen ink better than I thought it would. All the paperwork I have to fill out before a flight is done on duplicate forms and isn’t suited to a fountain pen. I find myself solving crossword and sudoku puzzles with my fountain pens more than actually writing anything meaningful.

What little writing I do with my fountain pen at work, either one of my Pilot Metropolitans or my Karas Kustoms INK depending on which one I brought, is on cheap paper and doesn’t make for a writing experience which is any better than using a gel or rollerball pen. There are a lot of fountain pens and ink which I would like to try but my job which doesn’t require a lot of writing and what writing it does require isn’t fountain pen friendly. I’m not saying I’m not happy with fountain pens, because I am, or that I’m giving up on fountain pens, because I’m not, just that I’m finding myself using them less than when I first started getting into fountain pens.

Now for a little bit of follow up to an earlier post I did on Flying with Fountain Pens. I am happy to say that after a good two months of flying with a fountain pen and using it during flight that I still haven’t had any issues with any major leaks or exploding pens. The only problems I’ve had are some hard starts and a little bit more than normal nib creepage.