Originally Posted by
Cannylad
Nutloose, none of those. A pilot’s watch never had a stop watch facility. It was issued when you joined and replaced if damaged or inaccurate. I had 6/7 in my career and the best and most accurate was the one I handed back on retirement. Surely they give you some sort of timepiece when you retire not take it off you.🤪 Hamilton is a name I remember and one of my watches had a new face stuck on it to hide the date aperture. This cost more as a date function wasn’t in the specification so had to be modified— if you looked carefully by the number 3 you could see the indentation of the hole.
Stop watches were fitted to the aircraft not the pilot.
My Dad had to hand back his Omega in 1981 when he was grounded for medical reasons after 40 years of flying in the RAF. Broke his heart........
Giving back the watch not the grounding. He figured 40 years of flying at HMQ's expense was a good innings
I think the watch was issued to him at Wittering in 1972. He did a summer camp there flying Chipmunks and came back with a lot of goodies from their stores, including a shiny new white flying helmet, Mk 3A I think, some cold weather flying kit and a pair of new flying boots and of course the Omega
He also got a low level trip around the UK in a 45 Squadron Hunter T7. An old friend was the squadron CO
