What a fascinating article that is Ian. I think it would be fair to say that the good old aircrew watch lost its attractiveness when Seiko came out with an affordable quartz watch in the 1970s. They were so accurate I can remember standing in the bar at Brize at 1300 with all of us looking at Mr Seiko's products as the BBC beeps went. The accuracy was amazing.
I bought my first one (a quartz 4004) in Masirah in 1975 (522753) and it still keeps almost perfect time.
Incidentally, I dropped it on the pool surrounds in Singapore and the day/date function stopped working. When I got to Hong Kong I took it down to the Seiko place in the Ocean Terminal. I explained to one of the young ladies what I needed fixing and she asked me to take a seat. About fifteen minutes later she re-appeared and I thought "now I'm going to get the estimate".
"How much?" said I.
"Nothing", said she, "And we have also given it a clean".
What service.
I don't think the Greenwich Observatory could ever match that.