Do you need a shirt with epaulettes to wear that watch?
Airborne_Again wrote:
Do you need a shirt with epaulettes to wear that watch?
I’m afraid the combined weight of that watch and epaulettes can easily rip one’s arm off – so better don’t wear them together 
(I wish I were 20 years younger. Then I would actually be able to read those dials without a magnifying glass).
Why are you joking? I just say what I saw. Another point is that is about 10x cheaper that Breitling and much cheaper than other luxury brand watches. Here you really pay what is worth for not the brand name. That’s my opinion.
What are the potential uses one might want from a “Pilot’s watch” (for me it seems like a fancy name to sell expensive watches)? / what would be your spec for a watch?
Things that I see might be useful
- Read time quickly
- Being able to see the time in potentially multiple time zones (especially UTC) – I personally kind of suck at doing the calculations so saves embarassment.
Things that seem useless:
- the calculator (especially those to "calculate speed’)
- timer (assuming there’s one on the plane)
- barometer (there’s plenty of them on the plane!)
- temperature (why measure a mix of body & outside temperature)
- compass
- anything that requires an instruction manual you need to carry in a briefcase.
Turbavykas wrote:
Why are you joking? I just say what I saw.
A life without joking would not be worth living, would it? I have been around pilots and aeroplanes for most of my adult life – private and professional, young and old. I do not see many of them wearing big “pilot watches” of any sort, expensive or less expensive. I rather get the impression that more and more, like myself, stopped wearing a watch at all. I even think the watchless pilots are quickly becoming the majority, one of the reasons being the security checks, the other the smartphone and tablet that you have to carry anyway.
What are the potential uses one might want from a “Pilot’s watch” (for me it seems like a fancy name to sell expensive watches)? / what would be your spec for a watch?
I have used the stopwatch function in IR tests, for flying holds and timed approach legs. Most planes have a timer somewhere (e.g. most ADF receivers have a timer) but a watch keeps it all handy.
For real-world flying, however, no special requirements.
About 3 years ago I got a self winding watch (the Fortis one mentioned above) because the battery doesn’t go flat. The price to pay is that it is a lot less accurate than a quartz one – it loses a minute every few days – and being conventionally luminescent it is almost impossible to read in darkness. There are no “tritium” watches that are self-winding; well not last time I looked.
Of course people buy watches for all sorts of other reasons, otherwise the whole luxury watch / dress / fashion watch business would be dead.
BTW the Fortis gets through all the security scans.
Peter wrote:
There are no “tritium” watches that are self-winding; well not last time I looked.
The line of Tritium lighted watches of Swiss company “Traser” also has some self winding models. The first hit from google is this one, but there are some more:
Peter wrote:
Of course people buy watches for all sorts of other reasons,…
I for example collect them. I have hundreds. Unfortunately no real expensive ones (but maybe some day in the future…). One of my latest acquisitions is this “Swatch diaphane chrono Navigator TAKE FLIGHT” of 2002. It is one of the very few Swatches with an aviation theme (the little revolving aeroplane which dubs as the seconds hand) and medium rare to find. But of course it would never cross my mind to actually wear that thing. It goes into the box with all the others and with a little luck in 50 years my son will be able to trade it for a castle in Ireland
The other thread on watch readability at night is here
The line of Tritium lighted watches of Swiss company “Traser” also has some self winding models
Ah yes… now I remember. But no stopwatches! Self winding stopwatches are all pricey. The Fortis was €1500 secondhand from a shop in Italy.
I used to have a Traser (tritium) self winding simple watch.
Citizen has phosphorus handles and dials and I am always able to read it in the middle of the night! I don’t know how they made it but it amazes me. I had casio and that luminescence will fade after couple of minutes.
Turbavykas wrote:
I am surprised nobody it mention here but every second airline pilot I saw uses some version of citizen skyhawk. I have super skyhawk JDM and it’s probably the best watch in the world for the money. You can easily change time zones, radio controlled, solar charged, titanium, sapphire, utc time, light, ect…
I have a version of this. It is fairly cheap, always accurate, easily changes time zones never needs battery or winding, and easy to see time at night. I am not into pilot watches at all but for a traveler it works well.
