I agree with Farrell, something clear and easy to read, features mean nothing, you rarely use them. My personal watch of choice:

http://www.timedesign.de/i/aristo/5H09RMB.jpg

I have a leather strap though. The design is based on the Luftwaffe, cannot ask for a more efficient design. All of the white on the watch is also luminous (except the date). Having the minutes on the outside means no real need of a stopwatch though you can't reset it, it's also automatic so no batteries, had mine for five years now the glass has no scratches or marks. Keeps pretty good time.

Imho the IWC Mark 10/11/12/15 are beautiful pilot watches. Personally, I use a Poljot Aviator. Time keeping is just ok. But, the price is very reasonable for a stainless mechanical chronograph which has a second time zone as well. And if it breaks, so what.

Vibrator
 

I like farrell's design and would like countdown timer with vibrating alarm. My wife gave me a Citizen Skyhawk as an engagement present. The whizz-wheel is great down the shops when you're hunting for the cheapest block of cheese: buying in bulk isn't always the budget option (I look forward to getting a job :{ )

Citizen Skyhawk for me in Titanium. Very nice - good luminecence, could do with a back light though. I use the whizz-wheel all the time when doing x-country flying. Have deleted time zones to UTC/Auz/NZ. Face is a bit exposed though, prone to scratching.

Also have a G-shock with analogue/digi and world time zones - again have deleted down to Auz/NZ/UTC. Lives in my car in case I forget my Citizen.

Hi guys,
Just want to share, i use Casio Pro Trek. It's affordable for me as a new trainee pilot.
http://www.cnet.co.uk/story_media/49...80_3_large.jpg
It has :
1) Magnetic Compass
2) Barometer
3) Altimeter
The altimeter and barometer are reliable if you fly in unpressurerised aircraft, not for the compass. But, i dont use it for main instrument when flying, just for reference.. :cool:

I still have my old Citizen Sky hawk pilot watch from about 20 years ago. Nothing wrong with it except it didn't have a light.
Yes I used the circular slide rule a couple of times. :D

Since my wrist is a bit skinny I don't really like the mega chunky so called pilot watches (eg like my old one). I now use a Casio G-ms. It's pretty good really.

The features I like.
Solar powered face to recharge the battery.
Large clear hands.
Digital section for different time zones, alarms etc.
Metal bars to stop the glass from being scratched up.
Metal band.
Light. Although, the digital bit isn't lit. That's something I'd change.
Water resistant and tough.
It doesn't really look like a poser pilot's watch!

If it was made out of titanium it would be even cooler but probably three times the price!

Citizen Eco-Drive Sky Hawk is the best of many tried over the years.

However, most of my instructors used cheap digital watches - with the biggest possible numerals.

What the hell do they know anyway?!

Citizen Titanium Eco Skyhawk thingy that lives in the drawer because it looks................. yeeuch.

I much prefer my $26, blue backlit Mickey Mouse watch. Keeps great time.



PS If anyone wants to buy the Citizen......?

I wear a HK700 Ellesse for day to day use but as an offshore pilot one has to jump in and out of the cockpit quite frequently and the strap kept getting bent. I now use a Breitling for flying and it works a dream.
It has the black analogue face with white hands so it easy to see in all weather conditions. There are two seperate digital readouts so you have the normal stopwatch/elasped time plus 24/12 day/date and alarms. It is a Bentley Special, it says so on the back.

BENTLEY
MOTORS
Special Edition
Certified Chronometer
100M/330FT
Manufactured in switchinternet
By BRIETLING

It has a rotating bezel and as I am paid in US$ and my expenses are in Sterling it is invaluable to work out how much of a pay rise/drop I am receiving.
I have had it about 8 months and it is accurate to with 2secs /month which is probably as good as the GPS if it wasn't corrected.
The strap bending problem is solved as it has quick release pins and it isn't affected by dropping 8ft to the helideck.
The after sales service is excellent. The dealer who sold it to me has replaced four strap pins so far AT NO COST WHATSOEVER.
The only problem I have had with it was that the second hand setting button pinged off somewhere but it has an excellent cost effective manual overide, toothpicks are about 5p/1000.
Knocked him down from RMB400 to 260, about 17 quid.

Breitling B-1....gift from my Bride. Best watch I ever had!

Best watch
 

B Navitimer, but that was when we needed a mini spin wheel. Wasn,t a posser piece, it was a work/planning piece, smaller than a big spin wheel. Why have a watch which distracts from the process of flying, spin wheels are cheaper and make good frizbees in the pub/garden, or KMIA ramp!!!!! A watch is for telling the time I thought?

The definitive pilot's watch.
 

Hello A340x. Just caught this thread while looking for the definitive pilot's watch myself.

http://www.h3watchshop.co.uk/images/...nium-Watch.jpg

My favorite is my H3 Commanders' watch by Traser. It has a clear, no nonsense face like Jimmy Macintosh's watch and fantastic visibility at night due to the tritium powered lights on the hands and hours. The rotating bezel gives me time airborne (when I remember to set it) and the date is always useful. The glass is sapphire crystal so no scratches in 5 years and the thing is waterproof down to 300m. The accuracy is phenomenal - less than 5 seconds error per month - which is all down to its swiss quartz movement. Not as stylish as a Breitling but still looks good with either a flying suit or evening wear. Best of all, you can buy five of them for the same price as a Breit.
Why am I looking for the definitive watch then? I would like an alarm on it, a second time zone, the day of the week, a chronograph and a slightly bigger face. There - that is my perfect pilot's watch.
A company called Fortis come close - but their prices are in the mid 'teens and I still have a mortgage.

Good buy fareastdriver. I bought the same one in Bangkok a few years ago for about £25. Man do i feel ripped off :}

Do ya think they're real? :ok:

Currnetly have the Citizen ECO-skyhawk with titanium bracelet. Nice watch and sort of light. But i'm getting a new breitling Emergency watch, maybe just maybe... they could save your life one day when flying around...
Brian304

Many years in aviation and notwithstanding the Breitling bashers I've always enjoyed the brand. Can't see the sliderule very well anymore and never used it that much anyway but I always liked the tie to pilotage and piloting skills the different functions confer. The high tech B-1 is IMHO about as close as I could get to an ideal aviation usage wristwatch. Wish I had it to use forty years ago. LOL. :)

Cheers,
Ron

Ron - sorry to have to hit your first post, but the pics are too large and I'm afraid too many! Please have a look at image posting guidelines at Reminder 4 on http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=251368. One pic 800x 600 if you would.

An early IWC Spitfire would suit me fine. Black face, clear digits. Unfortunately, IWC jumped the shark and change things for the sake of having something new to sell.

I like my Dufeau, and I did like my Fortis until I actually had to try and get something repaired by them. c:mad:nts. Complete waste of space, service-wise.

Fortis
 

Actually Fortis were superb on the customer service front - yes had to send watch back to Germany but it was well over 10 years old and they did a superb job and charged minimal costs. Would have cost more through a UK watch repairer!

Hopefully they will have a good UK importer soon.

See:

http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthr...ghlight=Fortis

Citizen Eco Drive Skyhawk
 

Citizen Eco Drive Skyhawk (Titanium) is a very nice watch. One does have to be careful not to scratch it.

Does anyone else find that the rotating computer sticks?

Sorree! Link to commercial site removed IAW PPrune rules.

Lutefisk989 My wife gave me a square box when we arrived at the hotel after our wedding - I opened it to find a Breitling B-1!

A wonderful watch for flying - analogue hour hand (local) and digital UTC background is great. Also home time as T2. It's good having the Alarm on T2 as you can set that for a specific time to call home.

Accurist Skymaster

Bremont...if you have the money

Bell and Ross do a nice 'altimeter' style, very clear face, choice of colours. Personally like the orange. Come in two sizes and one size is far too big for earth beings. Far too expensive for most earth beings too.

SINN 856 S

Beautiful and simple.

Flash watches for peanuts!
 

Have a look at Werners Flying watches.com.They have loads of interesting stuff for virtually peanuts!.I have x2 of the Astroavia watches..cheap as chips and work really well.One of them even looks like a Breitling!..its also more accurate than my old Navitimer!.

Yep, I like Farrel's design too.

I currently have a Casio tough solar watch which has two features that I really like - it is solar powered so you never need to change the battery, and it also picks up radio time signals so it is perfectly accurate and so always in perfect synch with the aircraft gps-clock. Other features of the watch are poor however - cheap finish, tiny digitial window, date only in US format, and fiddly knobology.

I would like to combine solar power and radio-time with Farrel's design. I'd also quite like a means to record block off/ block on UTC times.

Suprised no-one's mentioned the Breitling aerospace which of course was designed by Breitling in consultation with pilots. It's titanium and very light and quite distinctive. It has several features all of which I use. I've had mine ten years and it still looks like new.

The downsides are that too many pilots have on now, so they're far from unique and although it keeps pretty good time, it wasn't as accurate at my RAF issue Seiko. I had to give mine back when I left. The RAF is the only employer in the world who takes your watch off you when you retire!

IWC
 

Do not buy one of those machine produced things that tell time, instead go for the true swiss time keeping piece. Like IWC Pilot Chronograph, hand made and went through twenty three pair of hands for assembly and then you have something that will stand out when someone asks you the time
;)
Rolex Breiting stamp out over 700000 watches a year, and their attention to detail is only by the mechanical reproduction like you Ford Fiesta your driving

Just kidding, as long as you know what time you run out off fuel, get some runway under you beforehand.

Brietling Watch/EPURB

Heartell that Steve Fossett was not wearing his EPURB watch when he disappeared - otherwise he may have been located.

Are these watches fitted with an activating g switch?

I love my Brietling. I have the SuperOcean Chrono.

Simple watch, has date, stopwatch and funnily enough tells the time. No more, no less, just a beautiful hand made piece of art.

The only problem is its an automatic and as such i have to correct the time every few months but i can live with that.

Breitling
 

My Navitimer used to get moisture under the bezel and fog up. The damp eventually lifted the figures and markings off the outer ring. It was so big it often got caught and pulled out the strap pins. One time it fell to the cockpit floor (rubber mat) and the balance staff broke - expensive repair. Decided it was a legacy of my PPL days I no longer wanted and ended up giving it to a loadmaster. I flew the next 10,000 hrs with a simple, 2 hands and 12 numbers, clear vision, Swiss made watch sold by the Royal National Institute for the Blind. Simple, reliable and very practical.

Have a look at the Citizen Eco drive range. 15 minutes in bright sunlight runs it for up to 6 months and pro rata for indoor lighting. Displays one zone with hands, another on a digital display and UTC at all times on another small set of hands. 24 hour stopwatch, alarm, back light, radio controlled for time accuracy. When I was 2 weeks out of the radio reception area it was 2 seconds wrong when back in area so it is good worldwide really. Says resistant 200 metres so should be OK for some scuba diving. Simple conversion tables on a slide rule. Worth a look?

Well Dan,

Reputationwise I'm sorry I have to tell you that with an Aerospace you're way down on the list. It's even being used aft of the cockpit door! :{
Bought mine on a trip to Singapore years ago and have been using it ever since. I'm most thankful for the countdown timer, as it's obviously more convenient for pax to summon me to their seat and ask me what the remaining flight time is, than to check the airshow. ;)

Swatch is the best of the world in my opinion

Hi Guys,
This is my first posting i thought i drop a line as an introduction.
This is a interesting topic, being a quality watch enthusiast myself always wanted to know what type of watches pilots prefer.
Has anyone heard the name Chase-Durer? A few years ago i picked up a US aviation magazine and i was blown away by a full page ad showing a special fighter pilots watch. I got on their website and let me tell you i was so impressed that i immedietly ordered a USAF B-52 weapons school model and within 7 days it was on my doorstep. And the price? US$499
The quality is amazing.
Check them out on www.chase-durer.com
Let me know what you think. Cheers.:ok:

My dreamwatch:
-Titanuim (so it doesn't beep in security)
-Thin profile
-Saphire glass
-Digital and analogue readout.
-A couple of alarms
-Timer
-Automatically resets itself for daylightsaving time.

Basically a Breitling Aerospace :hmm: .

/LnS

Bentley Special, it says so on the back.

BENTLEY
MOTORS
Special Edition
Certified Chronometer
100M/330FT
Manufactured in switchinternet
By BRIETLING

Far East Drive *& Irish Stu hahah lol - I got one too!! But from Soho in NYC, about 3 yrs back, I'm sure the "Switchinternet" means it's real!, It is a real poser watch, I know, good fun though, so good in fact I bought another in Soho last month!! :ok:

For a rip off - it has been a really really good watch.:\ :p:8

From Dusk till Dawn, can you tell me what use a solar watch would be over 30m, so what company would water proof one for up to 200m. :ugh:

Pulsar - Argos £50 - replaced a U/S Timex which replaced a U/S Accurist

http://www.argos.co.uk/wcsstore/argo...5UC259266X.jpg

It has lots of time zones, Chronometer, alarms etc..

I usually leave the digits on zulu and the hands on local time.

From Dusk Till Dawn
 

Come on dude!:=
Give ARTHURR a break! We are talking about pilots watches not one of those poofter plastic Casios that you worship:(.
We all know that they are cheap and nasty and probably more suitable your paycheck but if He is brave enough to put His age on Pprune He is certainly deserves a Breitling Aerospace ( i am sure He already owns one ).
So forget the Scooby Doo:E(whatever) diving watches because most of us" PILOTS " living above water not under and i prefer my watches rather altitude proof not "attitude" proof.
GROW A WING!!!!;)

They're not Casios!
Have you looked at the watches on my previous posting? (#75)
That is my opinion.

From Dusk Till Dawn
 

That's cool, after all we are only pilots.
The Citizen Eco-Drive is a nice watch. As a matter of fact i have owned one for about three years, i have bought it in HK when they were first introduced but stopped wearing it because it has been gaining five minutes every month and no one seems to be able to rectify it.:( They are the most comfortable watches i have ever owned and being Titanium you can even wear it "Scooby" diving.
So, back to my Chase-Durer :D