► This month we take a look at the Pilot watches
► Radical advancement in watchmaking
► Ability to switch time zones instantly
Pilots’ watches seem to be developing faster than aircraft, despite the fact that you no longer need an accurate watch to fly a plane. We still don’t have a passenger aircraft faster than Concorde, but we have just seen the launch of two new Swiss pilot’s watches featuring genuinely radical advances in watchmaking. Here they are: along with a good-value German alternative which really is worn by test pilots.
IWC Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Chronograph: £9450
Clever new mechanism switches time zones instantly
IWC has just relaunched its Pilot’s Watch range. This is the most significant new model, bringing a genuine horological advance. It’s able to display the time in any time zone in the world, but instead of fiddling with the crown to change zones, you simply twist the big bezel which runs around the dial, putting your destination city at 12 o’clock. The time and date change to match. Simple, but technically fiendishly difficult to pull off.
Damasko DC56: £1945
Tough, good value and actually worn by pilots
Damasko is a small German watchmaker run by five family members who plainly share the obsessive-compulsive gene. It’s one of those bullsh*t-free German brands that embarrasses the Swiss for value. Despite its size it has engineered a series of genuinely useful watchmaking advances, and even patented its own ice-hardened nickel-free stainless steel. The range starts from £900, but this DC56 aced the NATO tests to be certified as a ‘flight instrument’ for the Eurofighter Typhoon, and is now worn by its test pilots.
Breitling Exospace B55: £6650
Links to your phone, but still primarily a watch
Instead of making a ‘connected’ watch that does – badly – some of what your smartphone will do, Breitling has wisely chosen to make your phone an extension of its new watch. The Exospace B55 is primarily a pilot’s chronograph, powered by a super-accurate SuperQuartz movement. The link with your smartphone simply allows it to carry out and record far more timing functions than the limited real estate of a watch dial allows, and makes setting the time and alarms far less fiddly.
Read more from the March 2016 issue of CAR magazine