Three months into the hobby I'd probably have two desk drawers full of pen paraphernalia and a credit card bill full of shame! Not that other pen freaks do this. I just know I would.
(and I'm left-handed....)
I fit in with obsessive gear geeks a little too well, and can't afford a new time- and money-suck of a hobby.
As somebody who enjoys playing games, managing to avoid the MMO craze entirely was a struggle and an achievement...
Forum responses are usually vague and along the lines of "try different viscosity ink," which, yeah, but there's tens of brands and thousands of flavors.
I put the success (thus far) down to always filling the pen all the way before flying, and also making sure the nib is pointing upwards at all times.
That being said, there's no denying just about any pen is better suited than a fountain pen for flying.
Edit: pens I've flown with - Lamy Logo and Dialog 3, various Pelikan Souveräns, the occasional Metropolitan.
Edit: Presumably obvious, but still - the reason for filling the pen all up prior to flying is that ink does not expand as air pressure decreases - unlike, well, air. If there is no air in the ink reservoir, outside pressure is more or less irrelevant.
I write rather a lot; I don't bring my laptop into meetings unless I need to. Combine that with my handwriting being relatively neat, small, and stylized, and I needed something with a sufficiently fine nib, and ink that would flow well through it.
It turned into a fascinating optimization problem, during which I ended up down the rabbit hole of nib sizing (European nibs tend to run wider than Japanese nibs), notebook paper (there are plenty of good notebooks that are fountain-pen friendly, and that Moleskine notebooks are both comparatively expensive and the paper just isn't great), and different types of ink (which brands run "wet" or "dry", etc.)... and all of this is before getting into eyedropper-conversions, nib repair, and all of the other craft-related things one can get into.
I started with (and still have) a Pilot Metropolitan and a Platinum Preppy that still see use, although I've gone over to a Kaweco Special FP and a Pilot Vanishing Point (both with extra-fine nibs) for daily writers.
The current "daily writer" tuples are:
1) Pilot Vanishing Point (extra-fine nib), Pilot black cartridge ink.
2) Kaweco Special FP (extra-fine nib), Faber-Castell Carbon Black ink.
...preferred notebook is the Kokuyo Campus High Grade MIO notebook (A5 paper, 80 sheets, ~$6.50 each).
That all being said, I still use ballpoint pens on airplanes; the Pentel BK77 Superb (fine point, black) works just fine.