Hello Jim,

maybe my statement about ''modern pilots'' was unclear, i meant (NAVIGATIONAL) clocks and watches such the Weems', the Lindberg', the Longines Siderograph Chronometre, the pocket CGT, the Mark3 Octant or the Heuer or the Junghans Sideral Time wrist watches just to list some...i did not mean the standard panel clock which must be there because flight invariably is function of bearing, speed and TIME neither the simpler watches such the Breitling's Navitimer or similar which anyway were widely used for flight scopes.

The usage of these timepieces is long gone and i do not believe that what was in common use in the early time of flying is now anymore at reach of the modern pilots.

rgds

Enzo

Enzo

Enzo

Thanks Enzo.

I am a pilot, though I no longer fly. I flew small military aircraft for 10 years. My father was also a pilot. He flew for Pan Am and he was a squadron commander for the U.S. Army Air Force in the second world war.

I was simply saying that pilots of today do use the panel clocks as one of their standard instruments to navigate while they are flying. In most modern aircraft they are electronic now, but in many they are still mechanical since mechanical clocks will not fail if your electical system gets knocked out by a lighting strike on your aircraft. This is also why modern aircraft still have whiskey compasses in addition to electronic ones and gyro ones. A whiskey compass is what pilots call an old style compass that works by magnetism alone. These are filled with a liquid to dampen the movement of the indicator. The liquid is a kind of alchohol but back in early days when the fluid needed to be topped off and the special alchohol was not readily available you could fill them with whiskey and they would work just fine.

Hallo Jim,

good to hear that you ''smelled'' Aviation since you was young and to hear from you that the flying of today is much easier than before due to the many aids available.
I am not a pilot nor a sailor myself but i been contiguous to that disciplines so i built some minimum knowledge and many times I wondered how difficult was to navigate i. e. on the oceans in the early times...

Going back to the essence of this post i would like to consider that the only ''Spec'' watch that appears among the above pictured is the Laco, in the top middle.

The others are more or less of the same period but probably less performant in precision.

The Hanhart and the Glashutte chronographs still very well crafted did not respond to any spec as far as it known neither were officially bought by the Luftwaffe.

On top of that the Laco (and his similar Spec. FL23883 watches, Stowa, L&S, IWC etc. )is never shown at the wrist of a light/fighter aircraft pilot but better to the wrist of heavy lift aircraft pilots which make me thinking that it was extensively used for ''serious'' navigational purposes.
At the time each German aircraft had his own panel clock installed on board and already responding to a spec (since the early 30') like no one in the world at the time.

As result of all that I would probably say that the German have pionieered the instrumental flight at high and low level of knowledge and skill and made it available to the general use by precise timepieces many of which wearable on the wrist.

For the ones not capable of large expenditure still the above pictured were available at the shop just like the better quality chronos.

Tnks and brgds

Enzo

Let's not forget we are talking about the early days of aviation, leading up to WWII (1939-45).

So far, we have not talked about the aviators of Imperial Japan. During the war, Japan issued at least some pilots with an over sized Seiko wristwatch w/turning bezel, black dial, and sweep second hand. It's reasonable to assume the above group of Swiss watches influenced the design of the WWII Seiko aviator. Most of these big Seikos have Imperial military inspection and aviation issue marks.

Best regards,

Greg

Greg,

surely some of the Japanese WW2 wrist watches were very well designed and somehow impressive!

rgds

Enzo

Thanks for pointing out the parallel, Greg.

It is indeed the period prior to WWII that I am interested in. The corresponding black-dialed, neutrally bezeled watch by IWC (the erroneously called "Mark IX" - correctly the "Spezialuhr für Flieger") was marketed with having an aviation bezel.

I know that both aviation watches and pilot's watches have come a long way since then. But we are talking about a period with lots of open cockpits, and any instrument in the planes would have been exposed to the elemnts unless the plane was in a hangar.

I am currently reading the autobiography of Elly Beinhorn (German Aviatrix, early 1930s) ... ans she is painfully concerned about her plane being sheltered and not exposed to the elements.

I cannot but imagine that such an attitude must have implications for instruments, or even backup-instruments like pilot's watches.

Enzo: Thanks for the picture of the fine old Seiko - it is exactly what I was talking about. If I'm lucky, someday I might own one.

Martin: I never heard of Elly Beinhorn, I'll have to do a google search on her.

Everyone: What about the fashion eliment? Back in the 1930's, was the watch a part of the coolnes of being an aviator?

I did ask my brother about pilot watch fashion statements after he received his flight wings in the U.S. Navy. In the 1980's and 90's a complex chronograph was highly fashionable for U.S. Navy pilots. But, in keeping with family tradition, my brother was too cheap to spend extra money for a fancy pilots watch. I think he used a Timex (but he was a flight surgeon, and not a regular fighter pilot). The Timex was his fashion statement.

Best regards,
Greg

A WW2 ''cool aviator'' wearing a Laco....

Hi,

i asked a British Military flying officer that flew large operational aircrafts to contribute with his point of view about this post.
Even if it tells about more recent experiences and not pre-WW2 I think it will be of high interest and here is what he said :

* My experience was as a Navigator, rather than as a pilot, and I used my
Breitling for the following activities:
* Pre-flight mission planning, when I did not have the time or the
equipment to complete a full ICAO flight plan. The watch was good enough
to calculate distance/speed/time for flight planning purposes. However, as
Jim Hester says, it is not easy to use in a cockpit. I was lucky in that,
flying in big aircraft, I had a navigation table for my charts, with good
lighting, and it was quite stable. I could therefore use either the
Breitling or the computer shown attached. You will quickly realise that
neither of these items are military issue and, like most military people,
if we thought that commercially available kit was better then we would buy
it. (actually, the CRP-5 was a 'gizzit' from a marketeer at an airshow, who
couldn't be bothered to carry his demonstrator equipment back to the UK!).
All pilots wore watches but that was usually to tell them when it was time
for the next cup of tea! Proper navigation was usually done on the
instrument panel clock, especially when they were flying holding patterns
in the stack to land, or for positioning during an instrument landing
pattern. You need to remember that navigators were employed on military
aircraft much later than in the airlines. Military aircraft had much worse
navigation equipment, because they still had navigators, especially on the
more operational aircraft (MPA, bombers, tactical transports and tankers,
etc)

* Astro-navigation. I was still doing astro-navigation as late as the mid-
1980's, as were many other military aircrew, but obviously only on large
aircraft during long -range sorties. However, by then, computers were
being introduced to aircraft, although there was still a need to set up the
computer, ie 'give it a time check' for the flight, and that was where the
watch was useful. I guess the last time I used my watch in anger would
have been at about the time of the Falklands War. There were many parts of
the world that were not covered by long-range navaids, and for which
astro-navigation was the only solution. This even applied to the North
Atlantic for some aircraft that were not so well equipped. Loran C (along
with Consol) was still in use in the 1980's although other navaids such as
Omega and eventually GPS were coming into use. All of this electronic
equipment almost made the watch redundant, apart from when you were not
actually sitting at your workstation. I think that the Nimrod was still
fitted with a sextant into the 1990's, although this was a Kollsman
periscopic sextant, rather than the old Mk 9 hand-held sextant for use in
an astrodome.
* Emergency situations. All aircrew were provided with watches for survival
purposes, amongst others.
* I started off using the standard RAF black-faced watch, I think it was a
'Smiths' but this was replaced by a white-faced Lemania stop-watch once I
had completed my navigation training and started to fly Shackleton
aircraft. Here it was essential to be able to measure short time intervals
accurately for low-level long range navigation at sea. There are few long
range navaids at 1000 ft altitude and 1000 miles from land! We had our
tricks of the trade. In the black vs white face debate, I would agree that
the black face was better to use in low lighting or at night, under red
lighting. But for the railway track minute markings, this was probably
fashion, although there may have been some human factors or ergonomic
reason for so doing.


P.s. The Breitling he refers to is a ''Navimaster''

Enzo, This post is getting every more interesting.

Be sure to pass on our appriciation to your friend, the British Military flying officer, for taking the time to add to our body of knowledge.

Being way too chicken to be any sort of pilot, I am amazed by those who not only fly, but are ready do so in combat, and then navigate back again.

Best regards,
Greg

Hello Greg/evrbdy,

yes, it is indeed!
Here is a '' Today's Airline Pilot, Our Member JSY point of view'' about pilot's watches...
rgds

http://germanwatch.proboards43.com/index.cgi?board=gene...ay&thread=1183478159