Flying machines This year at SIHH, IWC unveiled a broad relaunch of its Pilot’s Collection. Nine new watches were announced, taking IWC’s total aviator portfolio to a dozen timepieces

Flying machines

This year at SIHH, IWC unveiled a broad relaunch of its Pilot’s Collection. Nine new watches were announced, taking IWC’s total aviator portfolio to a dozen timepieces

 

The aviator watch is one of the most iconic, and easily identifiable, of all timepieces. While the wristwatch itself is a redundant instrument in modern cockpits, the aviator continues to draw both buyers who fly planes— surely a slim minority—and others who prefer to wield their fine timepieces firmly on earth. This is because the pilot’s watch, for all its functional history and technical DNA, is today a remarkably versatile device. Brands such as IWC, Breitling, Bremont, Bell and Ross and Tutima all bring their own contemporary interpretation to the pilot’s watch. The result is a timepiece that is often elegant and understated enough to be worn with a suit to work, but is also rugged and chunky enough to be subject to a rigorous weekend.

Big Pilot Top Gun Mirama: Mechanical movement, Pellaton automatic winding, date display, power reserve display, Glucydur® beryllium alloy balance, Breguet spring, screw-in crown, glass secured against displacement by drop in air pressure. Calibre 51111.

In an industry that often distinguishes collections by where you go or what you do with your watches, this explains the enduring popularity of the pilot’s watch—it can go anywhere and do anything.This is why brands such as IWC and Zenith have led their novelties for 2012 with several new pilot’s watches.
However, the history of pilot’s watches is not just the history of a genre, but a history of the wristwatch itself. It was in 1904 that a wristwatch was first made to be worn by an aviator. By then, Patek Philippe had already invented the timepiece for the wrist, but it was almost exclusively worn by women as jewellery. Then, in 1904, while celebrating a flying prize at Maxim’s Restaurant in Paris, pioneering French aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont asked his friend Louis Cartier to design a watch that would be easier to use during flights than the cumbersome pocketwatches.
Cartier duly obliged by not only designing the first pilot’s watch, but also perhaps the first wristwatch for men. The design of that watch, later christened the Santos, is a classic and a Cartier bestseller to this day.
The essential characteristics of the pilot’s watch, as we know it today, would take decades and two world wars to emerge. Today pilot’s watches are known for

Spitfire Chronograph: Mechanical chronograph movement, self-winding, date display, stopwatch function with minutes and seconds, flyback function, small hacking seconds, screw-in crown, glass secured against displacement by drop in air pressure. Calibre 89365.

several iconic features—high contrasts designs comprising black dials, large white numerals, over-sized hands, luminous markings, large pushers and crowns to allow use with gloves on, hardy materials, and adjustable straps that can be worn over flying suits. Many of these features are, like the watches themselves, redundant in modern aircraft. But they remain an essential element of watch portfolios, vestiges perhaps of a more romantic, daring era. By 1919, 15 years after the Santos was designed, Longines was already an official supplier of watches to the International Aeronautics Federation. The brand’s most famous pilot’s watch, however, would be the Longines Lindbergh Hour Angle watch, developed in the 1920s in association with perhaps the most famous flier of them all, Charles Lindbergh. That watch helped flyers calculate their longitude accurately.
Indeed, in the early days of flying, the wristwatch was vital for navigation. And brands responded by developing chronometers and chronographs that told time with ever increasing accuracy. In 1936, when IWC launched its first aviator, the Special Watch For Pilots, the timepiece came with a rotating bezel to help measure elapsed time.

Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar Top Gun: Mechanical movement, Pellaton automatic winding, power reserve display, perpetual calendar with displays for the date, day and month, perpetual moon phase display, double moon phases for the northern and southern hemispheres, four-digit year display, small hacking seconds, Glucydur® beryllium alloy balance, Breguet spring, screw-in crown. Calibre 51614.

World War II, which saw extensive airborne combat operations for the first time in human history, led to a proliferation of brands that made watches for pilots. The war-time development that has had the most enduring impact on pilot’s watches is arguably the “Beobachtungsuhr” standards released by the German government in the early 1940s. The standards were then handed over to a clutch of German watchmakers—IWC, Wempe, Stowa, A Lange and Sohne, Laco—who were then asked to supply watches to Luftwaffe navigators. These “B-uhr” specifications established many of the signature elements of modern pilot’s watches such as the high-contrast dials and over-sized dimensions. Ironically, of the 1,200 52mm pilot’s watches that IWC shipped in 1942, some 200 were sold to the British navy.The Americans, meanwhile, launched their own military watch standard called the “A-11”. The US war department, in turn, ordered scores of A-11 compliant watches from three brands—Elgin, Bulova and Waltham. The timepieces, remarkably similar to the B-uhr pieces, would prove to be extremely hardy. US servicemen used them right up till the Korean War, when the A-11 standards were superseded.

IWC would wait till 2002 before relaunching the Big Pilot, which has since gone on to become one of the brand’s most popular timepieces. This year at SIHH, IWC unveiled a broad relaunch of its pilot’s collection. Nine new watches were announced, taking IWC’s total aviator portfolio to a dozen timepieces. IWC recently granted Indulge exclusive access to the company’s archives. We took the opportunity to craft a visual history of IWC’s pilot watches. We also profile some of our favourite new IWC references from the Top Gun Miramar and Spitfire collections.