The Parker 45 Flighter was designed as an upmarket all metal version following the success of the plastic bodied pens, with the name continuing the Parker tradition in calling their stainless steel pens “Flighter”. Introduced in 1964 the original 45 Flighter consisted of a brushed steel body with chrome arrow clip, clutch ring and a black plastic end cap at the base of the barrel.
As with the plastic bodied pens Parker soon found that their new 45 Flighter was a runaway success and soon began to expand on the range of metal bodied pens with the Flighter at it’s core.
The Flighter was also offered with gold trims – the clip screw, clip and clutch ring being gold plated to produce a slightly more upmarket Flighter Deluxe GT (Gold Trim).
Over time the 45 Flighter went through several changes, the earliest being the clip screw that holds the clip onto the top being redesigned to facilitate the use of Parker “Personal Touch” stickers to personalise your pen. Earlier pens have a inverted conical clip screw where as after around 1970 they clip screw became either “dimpled” or “dished” – both of which have a flat circular area for the sticker to attach to.
Around the same time Parker also decided to change the black plastic end cap to a chromed one on their standard Flighter or a gold one on their Flighter Deluxe GT.
Late in the 1970’s a change was made to simplify the internal components of the barrel. The Flighter lost its full length plastic internal barrel inner sleeve to be replaced with a short brass threaded insert to screw the Shell Section on to and a small plug at the end of the barrel to screw the end cap to.
This version lasted until around 1979 when in order to simplify production and bring down costs the end cap was removed altogether giving the 45 Flighter a more squared off look at the end of the barrel.
In 1989 the chrome version was discontinued leaving only the GT gold trim version available, which lasted until 2001 when the pen was given a facelift with a black cabochon jewel mounted on the rounded clip screw and a newly designed stylised arrow for the clip.
These pens became the last of the Parker 45s to be made until finally they were discontinued in 2008.
