There are a few features that separate a pilot watch from other sports watches:. Pilot watches typically fall within one of two design categories. The first is the flight computer: a timepiece capable completing in-flight calculations or serving as a slightly more interesting backup to the E6B flight computer they made you pick up in ground school. Still, if the idea of early transoceanic voyages or a young hotshot from West Virginia breaking the sound barrier with nothing but the right stuff on his side gets you going, these might be a few features to look for.
You might even find yourself getting a small taste of what Mach 1 actually feels like. If you find yourself spending more time in the sky and airport hotel rooms, you might want to opt for something functional, with a look that goes beyond the average throwaway digital you found at the Duty-free.
Our Pick: The Breitling Navitimer. A pilot watch is a great option for the casual everyday wearer. In , Santos-Dumont-a Brazilian aviator-planned and designed what has become known as the first-ever pilot or aviator watch with Cartier. As a pilot, Santos-Dumont needed a secure way to keep time without withdrawing his hands from the flight controls. This first watch design was a small gold square face and exposed screws.
However, a wristwatch was still not considered masculine, and it was not until WWI's trench warfare, that men began tying their pocket watches to their wrists with bands to have easy access to their timepiece and improve accuracy during organized attacks.
Throughout the years, the pilot's watch has seen innovations that make the work of the aviator much simpler. These innovations were great feats of mechanical engineering, the bases of modern flight computers, all wrapped up in a beautiful and functional device that was small enough to sit on your wrist.
Complications, such as circular slide and chronograph, were introduced to meet the demands of ever-changing flight complexities.
Aviator watches have a basic military design paired with complications that are exclusive to aviation to make their watch more useful during flight for the wearer. Clearly visible indicators are a distinctive characteristic of pilot watches. A prime example would be the Jack Mason Pursuit watch. With a pilot's watch, the dial is often reduced to bare necessities. In most cases, Roman or Arabic numerals with striking luminescent hands so the watch can be read at a quick glance, even at night.
A Flyback Chronograph is a pilot's necessity because it saves time while recording several different timings in a row. The flyback chronographs, like the one on our classic Avigator watch , return to zero and restart instantly with a single button.
Due to the conventional stop-reset-start sequence involving 3 operations thus pressing the pusher 3 times , the Flyback moves through all phases by pressing the reset button once. These quick resets helped navigate the waypoint and check the map, enabling the "on the move" transition pilots. The slide rule bezel, the Breitling invention for its Chronomat watch, is a mechanical calculator for pilots — a kind of pre-digital-era mini-computer — that allows for all forms of in-flight calculations.
Slide Rule Bezels are centered on a fixed scale on the dial with a second, mobile scale on a bi-directional bezel, this mechanism can be used to calculate temperatures, or as a standard tachymeter to calculate how much distance could be traveled over a period of time. This was extremely important to flight and air travel before we had traffic controllers and computerized flight modules.
The red marker often attached to this fluted rotating bezel is a count-up or count-down bezel to monitor navigation or the distance a bomb will travel. After all, these watches were military instruments. You are currently in the United States of America store. If you want to ship your items to a different location, select it below. Item availability, prices, delivery information and terms of sale will be updated in line with your new shipping destination.
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