Hero 100 / 1000 Air Travel Friendly A La Parker 51?

[LuisAAbrilRomero]

Hi there,

when I am away on business travel, I take my Pilot Custom 823 with me as a pen for taking notes, a role for which it is suited to on account of it being a vacuum filler.

However, the pen has a screw-on cap, which I find slightly annoying, and in addition, I would like to take a cheaper pen with me. For this reason, I am thinking of purchasing a Hero 100 / 1000, but only if it shares the same air travel-friendly properties as the pen upon which it is modelled on, the Parker 51.

Does anybody of the esteemed members here have any experiences with the Hero 100/0 in terms of air travel?

Thanks for the help!

Luis

Edited April 6, 2014 by LuisAAbrilRomero

[Flounder]

It will depend on there being a precisely sized hole in the side of the breather tube. Loads of Chinese pens use breather tubes, but I don't know of any that actually have the pressure equalising breather tube hole.

 

edit - good photo of the breather tube hole on this vintagepens eBay listing:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-stainless-steel-breather-tubes-for-Parker-51-Aerometric-standard-size-/130634408926

Edited April 6, 2014 by Flounder

[LuisAAbrilRomero]

It will depend on there being a precisely sized hole in the side of the breather tube. Loads of Chinese pens use breather tubes, but I don't know of any that actually have the pressure equalising breather tube hole.

 

edit - good photo of the breather tube hole on this vintagepens eBay listing:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-stainless-steel-breather-tubes-for-Parker-51-Aerometric-standard-size-/130634408926

 

So that is the core of my question, then - is the Hero 100/1000 equipped with such a breather tube? And how well does it work in the contemporary environment of air travel?

[richardandtracy]

I seriously doubt the H100/H1000 have the hole in the breather tube - drilling such a small hole though the breather tube is difficult compared to the other operations involved in making the pens and is relatively risky from the point of view of tool breakage.

 

The way Hero seem to get around the problem in the H616 and H330 is by having relatively short breather tubes which only half fill the bladder - in fact the same approach Parker took with their P17 and UK Duofolds from the 50's & 60's. When a short breather tube is used, the end of the tube doesn't reach down to the surface of the ink when the pen is held nib upright, as a result the ink can't be forced out of the pen. It is a slightly risky design strategy from Hero, but it means they don't feel obliged to put in a breather hole. Hero seem to be very pragmatic & I doubt they'd put in the hole if most of the time it won't be a problem.

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

[Jerome Tarshis]

Hello from a man with a long memory. In the posting linked below, Richard Binder asserts that the Hero 100 (and other, not specifically named) Chinese pens did and I assume still do have the extra hole. This is not the only place where he made that assertion, but it should suffice:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/79399-not-aero-metric-squeeze-not-aero-metric/

 

The original question in this thread, however, is whether the Hero 100 or 1000 would be a good idea for air travel, as the 51 is thought to be. Well, ha ha, that's not such an easy question. Those who have been reading pen boards for a while will be aware that quite a few of us believe the Parker 51 is *not* especially safe for air travel. After years of flying with one and experiencing no leakage except for a drop or two on the hood when I took the cap off, I got a great big ink stain on my shirt pocket and stopped flying with the 51. Others here have not had that experience, and I wish them well.

 

I'm not going to post a link, but the keen student is advised to look at David Nishimura's site www.vintagpens.com, where his remarks about the 51 and flying are circumspect: he says the design of the 51 makes leakage less probable. That's nowhere near saying 51s don't leak in flight. Searching FPN should turn up a lot of let's say anecdotal evidence. Mine is only one anecdote. In my case there was a confounding variable, which is that I was wearing a sweater over my shirt, which would create higher-than-usual temperatures in flight; I might not have gotten my shirt stained if I hadn't worn the sweater. But no, it is not universally thought that 51s are safe in flight.

[Flounder]

The way Hero seem to get around the problem in the H616 and H330 is by having relatively short breather tubes which only half fill the bladder - in fact the same approach Parker took with their P17 and UK Duofolds from the 50's & 60's. When a short breather tube is used, the end of the tube doesn't reach down to the surface of the ink when the pen is held nib upright, as a result the ink can't be forced out of the pen.

 

Hmmm... the breather tube in my standard 616 Jumbo/Doctor extends most of the way up the ink sac. It fills most of the sac too. Taking these photos, I was struck by the thought that for all my tinkering with these pens, including three squeeze to vac modifications, I have never once measured the capacity of the 616 jumbo. It's 1.32ml, measured by taking up water, expelling it into a beaker, and measuring the contents with a 1ml syringe.

 

Clicky thumbs:

http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy19/flounder2009/Hero%20616/th_Hero616Jumbo-DoctorBreather001.jpg http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy19/flounder2009/Hero%20616/th_Hero616Jumbo-DoctorBreather002.jpg

[Flounder]

Thanks for the link Jerome, reading now!

 

ps - Jerome, Jerome, the metronome. That's stuck with me since first watching Gattica. How's that for a long memory!

[richardandtracy]

 

Hmmm... the breather tube in my standard 616 Jumbo/Doctor extends most of the way up the ink sac....

I stand corrected.

The 10 pack I have (from Speerbob) gives a range of breather tube lengths from 25 to 34mm from the top of the feed. This is, at its longest, just under half the length of the sac. Maybe a different person is cutting them these days.

 

Regards,

 

Richard

[Flounder]

That, or some up-and-coming type has figured out how to slash the factory's breather tube costs in half

[french22]

I have had a Hero 100 for 10 years now and honestly I don't know if it has or not this breather tube. However, being a very frequent airline user for many years, I can tell you that the Hero 100 behaves well when travelling: I don't remember having noticed any "blurp" when flying.

I'm not using it very often now as I prefer to travel with pens on which I can check ink level before my trip. These days my favourite are an Omas Bologna and a Sheaffer Blance II

[LuisAAbrilRomero]

Well, first of all, thanks to all the posters.

 

Unfortunately, given the variety of the answers, I feel a little bit like Faust in the namesake play: »And here, poor fool, I stand once more. No wiser than I was before.«

[Flounder]

Perhaps someone with a Hero 100 will be kind enough to risk breather tube removal? Looking at the special Hero 100 disassembly tool on ebay, it looks like it is not required for this task and the hood need not be disturbed. If so, try the following to pull out the breather tube and check for the hole:

 

1. Remove the sac guard.

2. Feel for the breather tube withing the sac, and push it forwards into the section.

3. Pull the feed and breather out of the nib end of the section. It should not be necessary to separate them.

 

Here's a short clip showing this process (in the context of nib & feed hood alignment in a 616 jumbo)

 

Edited April 10, 2014 by Flounder

[Flounder]

Hmm some editor bug or other prevents me from adding this amendment - going by this auction listing, the H100 sac guard screws into the hood connector.

[wikeh2004]

I just took a new Hero 100 Flighter on a 5 hour long flight both ways. There were some leakage on the flight over, and none on the way back. Not enough ink leaked out to get past the cap and stain anything.

 

However, I rather doubt that my Hero 100 has a breather. My experience is that pens with breather tubes need multiple squeezes to fill the sac. This Hero only has one squeeze in it. No air comes out on a second squeeze, unlike my 51s. I have not examined the sac carefully, but my guess would be that it has no breather and is just a squeeze sac. Therefore, I don't think it's quite equivalent to a 51 in that regard. Then again, it may just be my pen. YMMV.

 

Nonetheless, I found the 100 to be a good writer.

 

The TWSBI Vac 700 is cheaper than the Pilot Custom 823 and likewise is a vacuum filler that can be screwed down to shut off the ink flow. That might be an alternative to consider. I wish TWSBI would announce the Vac mini. I'd take that on a trip.

[Sasha Royale]

The internal Parker 51 is safe for my pocket aboard commercial airliners. I trust it.

I don't know the 616 well enough to give it the same respect. In any case, if you understand the issue with fountain pens

and changing air pressure, air travel problems can be avoided.