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Old 9th Dec 2011, 14:44
  #25 (permalink)  
peterh337
 
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Most "pilot watches" are a total waste of time.

Most are not usable because they have a 60-minute stopwatch minute dial, which is too fine to read easily. One needs a 30-minute dial.

And one does not need to do timing in what I call normal flying. It is only on flight tests (flying NDB holds etc) that a stopwatch is required. For that I have used a cheap yellow plastic thing, about 3" in diameter with big buttons, which hangs around my neck. The rest of the time one uses radio navigation (GPS usually) which gives you a continuous track guidance, with distance to the next waypoint, so timing is not required. I never time anything during any flights I do myself.

I have used a wrist watch stopwatch, in my US IR, and it was more trouble than it was worth because it was too fiddly. That was actually a nice watch - a Seiko "pilot watch", like the one currently sold by Transair. It packed up (as those Seiko pilot watches tend to do, apparently) and was fixed under warranty. I got rid of it in the end because the fabric straps lasted poorly and cost a packet.
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