I thought people might like to see this nice Italian Air Force aircraft clock that I have had for about 15 years. It is marked on the dial "R. Aeronautica" which stands for Regia Aeronautica or Royal Air Force. It is also marked "Sonia" and "Made in Italy". Why the "Made in Italy" is in English rather than Italian I don't know and it seems kind of odd. This has an interesting mounting arrangement where the mounting ring around the back of of clock is semi-separate from the case of the clock and there is a piece of cork between the two to provide shock absorbtion after it is screwed to the instrument panel.

I do not know the age of the clock, and I am hoping someone might know and will post it here. I believe the earliest it could be would be 1923 which is when the Regia Aeronautica was created, but I imagine it could be anything from the 1920s, 1930s or 1940s. I doubt it is any newer than that based on its style and the radium on the numbers. The dial/bezel measures about 2 3/4 inches in diameter, or about 65 mm.

I would appreciate any information on this that anyone might have to share.

Thanks!

An interesting old clock, Jim. There has not been much writen about early Italian aircraft clocks. With any luck, someone may have some information about it.

Thanks,
Greg

Neat clock Jim, can you show the movement.
How does this one keep time, , i like the aviation type clocks as Greg knows, they are interesting.
Thanks for sharing Jim.

Thanks, Greg. I am hopeful that someone here might have some information on it. The Italian Royal Air Force was never very large so I don't imagine there are all that many aircraft clocks around from them like there are from all of the other countries like the U.S., U.K., Germany, etc. At their peak during WW II they received a total of only about 10,000 aircraft compared with British (120,000), German (120,000) and American (300,000). At any given point in time their combat-ready planes never exceeded 2000. During the war they lost two-thirds of their planes so the number of clocks that still survive from this era and before can't be very many.

Thanks, Kevin. This clock keeps perfect time. I will try to get a photo of the movement for you soon and post it here. I've not opened up one of these before, though. Do you think it is just a matter of unscrewing the two small screws between the 1&2 and between the 7&8 and lifting it out?

Here are some more photos of the clock, including the movement. I sat down with the clock last night and figured out how to open it up. Those two screws on the face are only to hold the dial in place. The back of the case unscrews in a somewhat similar way as the WW I Waltham aircraft clock cases open up. By the way, the case is made of a black bakelite type material. Anyway, the back unscrews and when it is off, the mounting ring with its cork shock absorber lifts off. The movement is quite nice - 15 jewels. There is no maker name on it, just "Swiss Made" and a relatively low serial number. Does anyone recognise the design of the movement - either the maker or the approximate date it might have been made? I have also added a closeup of a marking on the back of the case. Does anyone recognize it?

Hi Jim, glad to hear the clock keeps good time.The movement looks quite clean.The movement looks very well made, like the thick plates and nice size of jewels in them.
Too bad there is no name, i am thinking swiss names like Doxa or Cyma.
Maybe someone will have some information on your clock, and like you say it is quite rare compared to other makers.

An interesting clock. It's hard to tell how old it is from the movement.

Thanks for the images.

Best regards,
Greg

I was just looking through my Whitney and I happened to notice another example of this Sonia clock on page 84. Unfortunately he doesn't give any details or dates beyond what I have already observed above.

There may be no connection, Jim, but the Swiss firm - Fritz Grandjean, of Le Locle, registered "sONIA" as a trade mark in 1905. See Pritchard at pg. G-67. This does not mean that they maintained their registration or if they did, whether the Italians would have honored the registration.

Best regards,
Greg