A pilot watch (mechanical, of course)

Got my first pilot clock after the Iron Curtain went down , around 1991 I think. That went into the Jag E-Type for the notoriously unreliable electric clock. Several years later we had to have another clock of the same type that was a LOT dearer. The owner would not give it away without us taking the aircraft stuck to it as well . . . OK, it´s a clock, not a watch . Vic

These are great Vic. I got one as well, serves as my desk watch as I can’t find space for it in the Mooney.

Swatch used to have a series with flight instruments on them as background, but I can’t find any pics. Very early ones. I’d love one of those. The only Swatch I have is one of the first chonographs they got.

@vic
Would you mind posting an pic of the rest of the car? (Need to verify that the plane clock is in an aesthetically appropriate environment.)

Allright, I think I had some photos here before but can tell you the 1964 3,8l E-Type was used in aviation matters quite a bit for touring to La Ferté Alais Meeting Aerien several times from the nineties . That was a thing of almost 1000 km from Munich area in one day on Fridays to get there in time for the show. Since we got our own aircraft we have not been in France again but there are plans after retirement of all crew with a lot more time at hand finally. Vic

I believe this model was offered to RAF flight crew during WW2, with payment due when hostilities had concluded – great marketing ploy by Rolex, and no, I don’t believe the offer was made to Axis air forces.

https://www.bobswatches.com/watch-resources/rolex-air-king-history

I’ve just been reading some stuff about IWC “pilot” watches and was surprised (thought not that surprised) that they also used the common ETA movement, just like most automatic watches above about €500; same as the one in post #65 above. So what do you pay the €4000 for? Just the outside case… IWC later changed to their own movement and guess what? It is reported as far less reliable.

IWC went bust (de facto) c. 1978 after the Swiss watch business got demolished by quartz watches but like the others they have re-invented themselves successfully as lifestyle accessories.

Their ceramic-case ones look interesting but at a high price… and if they have IWC internals they probably aren’t much good. They are also big.

It’s big, so that everyone sees it and knows that the owner paid X. It’s jewlery. No practical value.

Good quality Swiss brands do tend to hold their value – especially at the pawnbroker if your flying budget has got out of hand

The problem is that one then needs to treat the watch as a woman’s (or a fashionable gentleman’s) “dress watch” i.e. wear it only when going out to impress. If you wear a 5k-10k watch 24/7 it will get bashed around and end up with lots of dents and not be worth so much at the end of it.

I used to know one very fashionable pilot who had four 4-digit-price watches, sitting in one of these

I have just picked up an interesting data point on mechanical watches… Popped into a local watch repair shop (because my Fortis is losing about 30-50 secs a day). The guy put the watch onto his timing device and says it is “in spec” and therefore he won’t change it. When I asked him why he can’t just make it run a bit faster, he announced, with a level of arrogance which would make me want to crawl into a hole if I said it, that he is a master watchmaker and charges £1500 an hour “because there aren’t many of us left”. At £10000/day that could make some famous-brand watches as expensive to own as a plane – assuming the owner actually uses it to tell time

They also say that after a year or two the oils start to dry up so this is to be expected. They recommend a “service” (£300 for the Fortis) every 5 years. I wonder how many people actually do this? I really do think most “watch collectors” just wear the fancy watches to parties