Hey Y'all
I own a Swiss Watch company. I am in the process of designing what I would consider the ultimate pilot watch. But, since I am not the Ultimate Pilot (haha), then I also think there is room for other ideas. So, I am very interested in what you would think is important in a Pilot's watch?? I plan to sell this only to licensed pilots.
Brandon Marion:So, I am very interested in what you would think is important in a Pilot's watch??
Oh goody. I have wanted to air my beef with "pilot watches" for a long time! The one overriding design criteria I would keep in mind is this: The average age of GA pilots is about 50. What medical condition is universal in this population?
Presbyopia!
Watches that look like this:
are practically useless, because they look like this to us:
What I personally want, and have been looking for for a long time, is a simple dual-time watch, with an analog "local" time display and digital 24-hour Zulu time display. Like this $19.95 Casio...
... but in a better-looking design (with the Zulu time bigger as well).
If you make one like that, I will buy it.
Gordon ATP/CFI SR22 G3 GTS Turbo (TAT of course) w/ DFC90 A/P
Brandon, I'll go somewhat along with Gordon. Most pilot watches have too many features and are too big. Over the years I've found I need a good stop watch, two time zones, and an easy to read display. That's it. I also appreciate light weight, like titanium. Do that with nice Swiss style and good quality and I'm in.
Thanks Gordon! I agree with you 100%...I assume a lighted dial (for both Zulu and Regular times) is important for night flying? I am working on a mechanical wheel for Zulu time as opposed to LCD, think old time odometer..yes? no?
Thanks again for taking the time to help create this watch!
Thanks Charles, see my reply to Gordon for more data. I agree about too many features, I am not using my watch as an E6B or to calculate take off distance, mainly because I am not that smart and couldn't read it anyway if I was smart enough to use it. The problem with a stop watch is size of the dial, what if the stop watch could be added to the band, you may have seen the Brietling "co-pilot" module? Would something like this satisfy the need or do you need it on the watch, if so how long would the count up be, an hour?
Brandon Marion: I am working on a mechanical wheel for Zulu time as opposed to LCD, think old time odometer..yes? no?
Yes! As long as it is not tiny.
Re night, would a luminescent treatment such as tritium be suitable?
Along the lines of Gordon's thinking but could you make it for a woman too? My beef with pilot watches is that there are some nice ones out there but they are all for men and WAY too big for me.
I have a Timex Ironman for women right now that has the analog hands backed up by very large digital time. Not very expensive but VERY hard to find. We bought 3 the last time since I know they will break.
I know it's a small market share but you asked . . .
Sherri
Paul Platt N792PS
Brandon;
Good luck. For some reason; watches with PIlots seem to be a status symbol. I got caught up in this on the COPA Bahama trip. The Breitling there caught my eye.
I would somewhat agree with Gordon, but have a few other observations.
First; it needs to be a great daily watch. I would like it to auto set the DAY and DATE.
There is a difference between a digital watch and a "Timepiece" like the Breitling. You will have to decide what market you want and that will drive cost.
Yes, it needs at least 2 time zones.
Yes, it needs a good stop watch function.
In the end; I don't think pilots need a watch anymore given our advanced cockpits and the fact we all carry cell phones and computers. They want status symbols so they can show their time piece to their friends and be in the PIlot Club.
I would rather not have any digital part of my watch. I don't want a timex. I want a good Swiss time piece. I like my Breitling Navitimer, but think it should be able to figure out the DATE in the month, year.
John Ylinen Cirrus SR22G2 (N927SF) @ HEF (Manassas VA) Pvt Pilot Instrument
An update to the IWC Big Pilot with UTC in a readable format and a complication with a similar, readable Date would make me drool.
Trip
Trip Comm/Inst/SEL/MEL/CFII/CSIP
Maybe you should make a POLAR, GARMIN or NIKE type watch and do it in Japan and not Swiss. Go digital and you could have a pulse/oxygen sat bluetooth connection. Then you could also have a USB to PC capability to set alarms, store station landline #s, clearance delivery freqs, etc.
I used to go to Swiss when my friend's dad owned Severin Montres. All the lines are nice but highly over rated IMO, except Rolex. I would buy a classy women's jewelry watch that weaves some aviation theme into it. Maybe you can make a two timezone women's quartz watch that has a emerald & ruby bezel with a button for mini "led" strobes pulsing on the face. Something to get her remotely involved. Maybe a collection of interchangeable bezel covers with different timezones.
-Tom Mackel
Ditto what Gordon said, I also like an alarm to set, so I remember to close my flight plan if I am VFR,
Don
Brandon Marion: Thanks Gordon! I agree with you 100%...I assume a lighted dial (for both Zulu and Regular times) is important for night flying? I am working on a mechanical wheel for Zulu time as opposed to LCD, think old time odometer..yes? no? Thanks again for taking the time to help create this watch!
Brandon,
I have a Casio ILLUMINATOR. It is a relatively low end watch, but has most of the features I want. It is digital lcd w/ good back lighting. The way I would improve on it would be to put both time zones up at the same time instead of having to toggle between. Most of the time I know what day it is, wouldn't mind having to toggle that. Sometimes I even know the date, so could toggle that also. Another improvement would be to put it in a nicer case/band, it does look low end, but I like it for functionality. I would not want an analog watch, notwithstanding the Swiss craftmanship. There are some really fine buggy whips out there w/ great craftsmanship, but...
Randy
2005 SR22/G2 #1722 N7822M Shreveport, LA KDTN
I'm wearing a Breitling Chronometer Aerospace with a pilot timer on the wristband right now. It''s the best one i've found so far. Can't wait to see your improvements. The fuel, distance, computer (Round slide rule) on watches made for pilots strike me as useless.
I agree with Gordon's comments.
Dave SR22 GTS N969SR #2111
Brandon Marion: Hey Y'all I own a Swiss Watch company. I am in the process of designing what I would consider the ultimate pilot watch. But, since I am not the Ultimate Pilot (haha), then I also think there is room for other ideas. So, I am very interested in what you would think is important in a Pilot's watch?? I plan to sell this only to licensed pilots.
I will answer your question by criticizing some of the watches I own. I have looked high and low for the perfect pilot watch (without success) and I have bought a few. Good looks was NOT one of my criteria.
The Tissot T-Touch could have been a real contender but it missed the mark. Obviously, nobody on the design team talked to real pilots. It has an analog dial and a digital display also. It is very attractive. Using the crystal for an input device is cool. But it has problems. There is no second hand on the analog dial. The thermometer is useless because on your arm it reads somewhere between air temp and body temp. I do not know of any watch that has a good thermometer, so dump it completely unless you engineers can do it right. The barometer is Eurocentric, only reporting in hectopascals, which makes it useless in America. We need good old mm mercury. The altimeter requires that you know the exact altitude in order to set it correctly on any given day. (If I knew the altitude I would not need an altimeter...) You can't put in the local Baro correction setting. Once set though, it is very accurate and it is even sensitive to my walking up to the second story in my house. If set correctly at the takeoff airport, it tracks my airplane's altimeter exactly. But after flying half an hour the local setting is way off and so the altimeter is useless. The chronometer is nice because it is simple. Most of the digital watches go crazy with split timers, laps and so forth. A single stopwatch is all a pilot needs, IMHO. The compass is a great backup and it is also very accurate. The alarm is not loud enough and it is useless in the cockpit. A vibrating alarm is mandatory for a pilot watch. The digital display is too small and it cannot be illuminated. The watch face cannot be illuminated and the luminescent hands are too dim. It is supposed to be titanium but it is clearly a cheaper alloy. Nice crystal... I have had it for a while now and it has not scratched at all. The buttons are too hard to push and they are positioned too close to my skin ... when I push the buttons my finger pulls on my wrist hairs. I mean every time... I hate that. The digital readout can be tricked into displaying ZULU time, but the watch was not intended to do that and it is an undocumented, lengthy trick. When it is set up this way to show dual time, the compass function shows a crooked needle. The compass function is read off the analog dial, which would be a nice twist if the needle wasn't crooked because of the Zulu hack. The manual does not even talk about dual time. When the Daylight savings time changes it is an ordeal to reconcile the two again and I can never remember how I did it last time.
The Suunto Observer has a lot going for it. It is my favorite watch but is is not perfect by a long shot. It is a practically bomb-proof all-digital watch with a solid metal case and excellent "feel." The back is actually plastic, so it is not cold when you put it on. For a digital watch it looks pretty darned good. The band was rubber and the original lasted only about a year of moderate use. Replacement bands are very expensive from Suunto. An after-market band is what I wound up with and it was kind of cheap and very hard to put on. It is basically a climbers watch and it has altitude history functions that are useless for a pilot. The thermometer is useless too for the same reason as before. The altimeter and barometer functions are quite good but on separate pages. You can easily change the baro setting en route. Great compass, but digital of course. It has useless multiple chronometers, alarms and lap timers and such. This adds to the complexity of the watch and too much complexity decreases the usability. The dual time is easy to set and reset. One thing I would love is to be able to have the normal time on a 12 hour clock and zulu to be on a 24 hour clock, but this watch cannot do that. The alarm beeper is so quiet that it can't be counted on to wake me up. No vibrating alarm. The blue luminescent dial is easy to see and certainly not so bright as to decrease night vision, but I think all pilots would prefer to have red lighting instead of blue anyway, just because red lights in the cockpit are what we are used to seeing.
I have a Timex WR100 digital wristwatch that is light, cheap and utilitarian. It has a good compass, good timer and alarm. Other than that it is basically a runner's watch.
My Torgoen T6 pilots watch is useless - the E6B is impossible to read. No altimeter, compass, timer or stopwatch. People are always telling me how cool it looks though.
If all you want is a reliable, good looking watch that does date and dual time with 12 hour normal and 24 hour zulu, you can't beat the Rolex Explorer. No criticisms at all.
What I would love to see -
Dual analog and digital with minute hand on the analog and digital 24 hour zulu, date and day.
Automatic daylight savings time transition.
Red lighting for the dial and the digital window.
Sturdy, immortal construction. Slightly bigger than an average watch but not huge.
A smaller version (not a "woman's" version) with all the same functions for male and female pilots who like smaller watches..
Chronometer, count-down timer (default 1 minute) with vibration and beep at the end, alarm with vibration and beep. Chronometer does not need to report hundredths or even tenths of a second.
Altimeter and baro setting made easy.
Compass on the analog dial, like the Tissot.
Stylish look, with either metal or synthetic band choices.
Overall ease of use - no C++ programming experience necessary.
Buttons on the top of the case, not the sides.
I will be happy to beta test and severely critique your prototypes as long as I get to keep one!
Mike Doody
P.S. A unique feature that would sell a lot of watches is a gps chip to change the time zone automatically. Don't be tempted to do anything else with the GPS function though.
P.P.S. - An automatic altitude warning (vibration) to remind the pilot to turn on the O's would be nice.
Would love to see UTC, Date, and have backlicht that is readable in the plane. But keep it simple and straight forward, this gives more space for looks improvements. I so agree with Gordon, at our age small stuff to read is anoying and we then just ignore it.
Don't get me wrong I love breitling, cartier etc, have them all, but to be honest it is not really functional (besides time). Sure a timer would be nice, but all that need a timer do have those also in the plane, so I do not consider this a big plus.
I think to give it a more 'aviation look' put something very 'aviation like' on the bezel. Otherwise who would know it is an aviation watch?!
Former Cirrus sr22 (1100 hours), Velocity TXL5 (260 hours), Currently Lancair 4p, n45HL with wing cuff's like a cirrus, but going 265kts ;)~