This Longines Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch 90th Anniversary celebrates the first non-stop Atlantic crossing by aircraft, in 1927
A pilot is a watch type that is tailored to the needs of aircraft pilots. Although the reality was that pilots only needed a watch with hours, minutes and seconds to do their calculations for time and distance. But no one did, as all those calculation functions are on the standard manual flight computers and calculators. Unless they were flying something that looked more like a bike.
However, at some point watchmakers mixed the functions of standard manual flight computers and calculators into a watch. Except for the cross wind plot calculator. To make them readable these watches were bigger than regular watches. Nevertheless, all the extra functions on the watch were already in a plane. These days, when electronic systems were introduced on planes, built into flight management systems, pilot watches became even more unnecessary. Still, pilot watches, with all the heroic stories, precision certificates and the complicated dials and bezels attract a lot of people.
Pilot watches
A gender neutral pilot from Zenith: this is the Zenith Pilot Type 20 Extra Special 40 mm and it comes with some colorful dials
The Zenith Heritage Pilot Extra Special Chronograph is one of the most cool retro pilot watches we have seen in years
The Breitling Colt Skyracer is Breilting’s latest pilot model. It’s made from polymer with composite fibers to make it ultralight
The Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Horograph and Horolum are the latest models within the Instruments collection: of course square-shaped
These are the 16 best watches of 2016. We think. And we have categorized them by topic. Sort of. Here we go!
The Citizen Promaster Sky Satellite Wave GPS not only looks impressive, you need an impressive amount of time to figure out all its features
The Breitling Navitimer 01 (46 mm) Limited Edition Panamerican Black is the fifth limited edition within the 46-millimeters Navitimer 01 collection
This Longines Avigation Watch Type A-7 1935 is a contemporary replica of a watch Longines provided from 1935 to U.S. Army pilots
The Zenith Heritage Revival Cronometro TIPO CP-2 is a remake of the Zenith Cronometro TIPO CP-2, also known as the “A. Cairelli”