IWC known as “Watch Engineer” in the watch industry, it was born one hundred and forty years ago, with such a long history, it gave IWC an indelible position in the watch-making field. Among its representative watch brands, the dominating “Pilot’s Watch” has always been the collection of fashionable players.
IWC Pilot’s Watch has high precision characteristic, and has been much favored by Air Force in various countries, with the legendary color. IWC launched the first pilot’s watch in 1936, it was designed to enable the watch to normally operate in the special circumstances of the cockpit, with clear and concise black dial, the clear luminous hour and minute hands, and luminous hour markers, with a short-chronograph arrow in the rotating glass inner ring, it is a model with excellent performance now. After 1940, in the needs of military, IWC began to design Pilot’s Watch for Air Force in various countries. The first Big Pilot’s Watch came out with original pocket watch movement and large central second hand, it was the certification watch that specially designed for military scouts and pilots. Big Pilot’s Watch was designed for the German air force, at that time, a large dial and night display design allowed pilots quickly read when worked at night, and a large crown and a long strap design was to facilitate the pilots with thick jacket and gloves to wear and adjust watches. As for performance, the IWC advanced soft iron magnetic device can avoid the error of the movement interfered by the magnetic field in the cockpit, it was a trusted professional Pilot’s Watch.
Continuing a long history of Pilot’s Watch, today, IWC has the most perfect and excellent Pilot’s Watch in Swiss watch industry, including Big Pilot’s Watch, Mark XXVI Pilot’s Watch, Spitfire UTC, Spitfire Chrono and so on, all the Pilot’s Watch fans can find their own style of Pilot’s Watch in IWC.
Big Pilot’s Watch: the World’s Largest Automatic Movement Exclusively Designed for Pilots
Big Pilot’s Watch produced by IWC can’t be faded in popularity after several decades, it is because that the watchmakers attentively design the internal structure of Big Pilot’s Watch. The Big Pilot’s re-edition watch launched in 2002 is the culmination of many IWC Big Pilot’s Watches, with the exclusive production of 51110 movement, this movement embodies the long-tested craftsmanship of IWC mechanical watches, it is the world’s largest automatic movement at present. It is equipped with 51110 movement of Buhler Dayton self-winding system, its spine-style winding device uses the technology of pawl interacting on the gear to make the watch through slight reciprocating and make two-way winding in the best performance, it can store 8 and a half hours power reserve in the shortest time; the sophisticated mechanical devices can stop the movement after operating 168 hours (7 days) and before the suspension of power reserve, so it can prevent the negative effect that because the mainspring unduly twist, and then affect the amplitude of the pendulum to affect the accuracy of escapement. In 2006, IWC slightly changed these exquisite watches then introduced various new models. The exterior designs of hours, minutes hands and dial were accordingly changed along with the new Pilot’s Watch series in 2006, more elegant and harmony.
Mark XXVI Pilot’s Watch: a Classic Combination of Tradition and Modern
It was more than 70 years since IWC launched the first Pilot’s Watch in 1936, its performance was specially designed for the special environment in the cockpit, to ensure that the watch would not be interfered by the instruments in cockpit and maintain accuracy, and the dial design made the pilots easy to read and keep track of time. The classic Mark XXVI Pilot’s Watch design has more Pilot’s Watch features, the dial diameter is increased and imitates the design of instrument in cockpit, making it more concise and legible; it is coated with Super Lumi Nova on the dial and hands at the same time, making time display be clear at a glance. The watch style is retro and elegant, and its excellent shielded magnetic performance makes the watch operate more accurately.
Mark XXVI Pilot’s Watch is with a diameter of 39 mm, 1 mm bigger than Mark 15, making its proportion more harmonious. Mark XXVI Pilot’s Watch is equiped with 30110 self-winding movement, the accurate operation is convinced, 42 hours power reserve, accurately display the date and time.
Spitfire UTC: Energetic Pilots
Pilot’s Watch represents the traditional essence of Schaffhausen IWC. In 1936, IWC first launched the “dedicated to pilots with special watches”. Spitfire as a famous fighter in aviation history, it is attracted with elegant appearance and superb technical features.
UTC is very important to pilots, it is based on Greenwich Mean Time, making difference around the world is consistent. So IWC introduced the Pilot’s Watch with 24 hours global time display since 1998. It is not only important not to pilots, but also to the passengers from all continents and the businessmen who need to communicate with the world. The local time and date display on the Spitfire UTC, it can be adjusted the crown in the hour unit to make it fast or slow. The local time of the wearer displays on the 24-hour window. The arc window of Spitfire UTC, moves from the upper half to the lower half of dial, the overall vision of dial is more harmonious, like a blooming pure smile.
Spitfire Chrono: Designed for the People who Don’t Need Co-pilots
In the deafening roar, two fighters flied in formation. They sometimes flied left and sometime right, and suddenly rose in a almost vertical angle, drawing a breathtaking sharp arc in the air. When the show reached climax, the fighter made a bunt movement, the audience responded with warm applause. It didn’t have any fighters like the beautiful and flexible Foo Fighters, making fans love it so much. A total of 20,351 fighters off the line, the fighters that British made in the largest number. In 1936, the chief designer Reginald.Mitchell created a masterpiece with the combination of technology and aeromechanics, the large wing made this single-seat fighter be capable to fly in a sharp arc, and have great flexibility. With the 1030 horsepower Rolls Royce engine, and from the first generation upgraded to the second generation of more than 2000 horsepower. Spitfire fighters continued to serve until the 1950s, and now a few were still retained, the excellent performance made pwople admire them as the legendary, and became expensive collection: the original fighter after fully restoring was worth about USD 3 million, if you can find it.
The Schaffhausen IWC designers transplanted the streamlined elegant lines of this fighter to the Spitfire Chrono. With almost the same method of using rivets fix metal skin on the frame, “riveted” the hands and numbers on the dial, making the watch looks like having a clear three-dimensional sense. Except for the red second timing pointer used to calculate the middle time, mechanical chronograph movement drived the other five pointers to make its shape reminiscent of the legendary fighters and reconnaissance aircraft propeller blades.
IWC Rattrapante Chronograph TOP GUN: Designed for People Who Don’t Believe Gravity
Be ready to take off! The jet engine came out deafening roar, the assisted ejection device started, making the jet plane in a speed of 300 km per hour within two seconds: it is an amazing pull both for people and fighter. There were Top Gun graduates of the legendary U.S. Navy defense school in the cockpit. This title was only granted to the fighter pilots with most rapid response and most heroic. With most extreme narrow arc, they must withstood 10 times centrifugal force compared to the gravity, pushing to their physical limits.
IWC Rattrapante Chronograph TOP GUN was designed for such extreme condition. It was a collection of all the expertise when Schaffhausen IWC made the watches for professional pilots. The case was made of the high-tech black ceramic, the buttons, crown and bottom were made of the dim gray titanium which made by machine, inner case used soft iron to resist the magnetic field, time-motion measured the middle time. The IWC watch was the model of the most sophisticated top watches, and it was the foundation that the company had an important brand reputation in the international watch market. Far before Schaffhausen IWC formally issued Pilots Watch, the prototype watch accept 30 kinds of relentless testing, as the trained Top Gun warriors in Nevada. Climate test imitated the climates from North Pole, the Sahara to the rainforests. Immersion in seawater for two weeks was to test the corrosion resistance in the harsh salt water. The impact test was to put the watch in the accelerated rate that very few watches could remain perfect: with vibration and knocking in ceaselessness for hours, accelerated speed was up to 5,000 times of gravity. Only the watches could sustain accurate operation could get the Top Gun logo. This honor for top pilots was not coincided, for the IWC designers there was one common point between the two: only the best one was enough good.
