Pilot are a Scottish rock group, formed in 1973 in Edinburgh by David Paton and Billy Lyall.

[9] Paton and Lyall had briefly been substitute members of the Bay City Rollers before that band's breakthrough.

Joined by drummer Stuart Tosh, the band recorded several demos during 1972 and 1974 at Craighall Studios, Edinburgh, where Billy Lyall was the resident engineer.

It also went to number one in Australia where it stayed up top for eight weeks; in the United States, it reached the lower end of the Hot 100.

[11] The arranger of "January", Andrew Powell, went on to record Kate Bush, and both Paton and Bairnson played on her debut album, The Kick Inside, which included "Wuthering Heights".

[14] The band's other singles chart successes were "Call Me Round" and "Just a Smile" (both 1975), which each hit the top 40 in the UK and nowhere else.

[15] By 1977, only Paton and Bairnson were left from the original foursome, and after switching labels to Arista they recorded Pilot's final album Two's a Crowd with keyboardist Steve Swindells (later of Hawklords).

In 2020, the label Cherry Red (Rough Trade) released a 4 CD box set containing all 4 albums of the band plus some rare recordings as bonus tracks.