Reply With QuoteGuinard (the late Helmut Sinn's company) Classic 40 (40mm) Flieger chrono. About €1,600. Numerous desigins.
https://www.guinand-uhren.de/home.html
I've been looking at flieger chronos and thought it might be interesting to share my findings and see if anyone has any other options or thoughts on these. Prices are from various websites rather than RRP so may not be hugely accurate. These are all 3 subdial with similar layout and look.
Firstly will have to link a great background thread: What is an Aviation Watch
It should be noted that these are a modern take, not historically accurate and if that's your desire then this is not the post for you (but replies further down might be!).
IWC Pilot Chrono - Cost £5250 on bracelet, £4500 on strap.
43mm by 15mm
This is the highest price and really sets the benchmark, gets great reviews. Looks fantastic, comfortable to wear, the bracelet with micro-adjust is very popular. Top quality and real attention to detail but you pay for it. IWC were one of the original flieger manufacturers along with Lange, Stowa, Wempe and Laco. It's not really the same company now but there is some form of heritage there if that's important to you. Discounts of up to 20% are reported by expert hagglers. Lume is pretty poor with only 4 points plus hands lumed. Movement is top grade ETA 7750.
Comes in three colours, black:
Blue "Petit Prince" (with the character engraved on the case back)
Silver Face "Spitfire" (with the plane engraved on the case back)
Laco Kiel - £1750
44mm by 15mm
Apparently being retired but still available on the Laco website as a limited edition. Not much colour this one. The other original flieger manufacturer. Looks great, although the minute hand is a bit small, apparently wears a bit bigger than the IWC, nice comparison here. Uses basic 7750 movement.
Laco Monte Carlo - £1625
44mm x 15mm
Seems to be same as the kiel but more colourful.
Sinn 358 - £1750 acrylic, £2125 with sapphire, £2625 Diapal, £170 extra for bracelet
42mm x 16mm
Sinn have a great reputation and well deserved, many happy owners including me (356). This one has a domed crystal, which I'm not hugely keen on as I'm paranoid about bashing it on things! I believe the 358 uses a standard 7750, the Diapal version uses the SZ05 which is Sinn's in-house modified 7750 using materials chosen to reduce lubrication needs and also has their dehumidifying technology. Sinn also do the 356 which is a bit smaller at 38.5x15mm and seems to now come with a SW500 movement. There was a copper version knocking about called the 356 pilot ii and also the pilot III with a silver dial.
Standard:
Diapal:
Version III
Muhle Glasshutte Terrasport 1 Chrono - £2760 on strap, £100 more for bracelet
44mm x 13.6mm
Movement is MU9413 which is a SW500 modified with a woodpecker neck regulation, comes in a bit thinner than most others. No day indicator.
Muhle Glasshutte Lunova Chronograph - £2960
42.3mm by 14.2mm
Think this was new in 2018. Not really a flieger chrono but bit of a modern take and quite interesting, personally I'm not a fan of the chopped numerals.
Archimede Pilot Chronograph - £1400
42mm x 13.6mm
Uses base 7750 movement with no day/date, hence bit thinner. They also do one with the top grade 7750 movement where the subdials are at 3/6/9.
Fortis Flieger Professional Chronograph - £2000
43mm by 14.5mm
Thought this company went under but still seem to be going. This one has a bit more colour with green & orange on there. 7750 based. Busier dial than most others.
Fortis Aviatis Aeromaster - £2150
42mm
Bit more colourful and stylish dial. Couple of variations available such as old radium which is a bit more colourful again and stealth which is DLC black.
Damasko DC56 - £1600 on strap, extra £560 for bracelet (!), £2279 for the SI model.
40mm x 13.8mm
Modified ETA 7750 with their ice hardened metal case, these are renowed for being rock solid so would make a really good tool watch. Bit of a gap between the logo and day/date which some reviews didn't like. PVD black version available for an extra £80 or so. White face model available in the DC57. DC58 has a bit more colour with blue second hand. The DC56 has some tie in with EADS/Eurofighter. SI model has slightly different face with sub-second dial and mods to the movement.
Regular:
SI model:
Steinhart Nav-B II Chrono - £795 on strap, £25 for bracelet(!)
44mm by 16mm
A lot of people don't like Steinhart but this one is fantastic value. Looks very nice with a bit more colour on the hands and excellent lume. Reviews report it is not quite as high quality as any others here, that the straight lugs make it wear fairly large and high on the wrist. There are plenty of happy owners around. Also do a DLC black edition and 47mm version.
Bremont ALT1-WT - £4800 on bracelet, £4400 on strap
43mm by 16mm.
Uses a modified 7750 that is COSC certified. May divide opinion, not advertised as a flieger but fits the bill here. White, blue and black face models available. A few other Bremonts like the ALT1-Z and stealth bomber ALT1-B would also fit in here.
Tutima Grand Flieger Classic - Couldn't find a UK seller - $5000ish
43mm x 16mm
Uses a modified 7750. Included for completeness really, don't know much about this one.
Last edited by wombleh; 4th June 2018 at 14:37.
Guinard (the late Helmut Sinn's company) Classic 40 (40mm) Flieger chrono. About €1,600. Numerous desigins.
https://www.guinand-uhren.de/home.html
Good round-up there!
I’ve got a Damasko DC56Si and, interestingly, the dial is subtly different to the standard DC56 model. The running seconds dial is completely different and the Damasko logo is much closer to the day-date window. I think this makes it look much better balanced. I’m not sure how to post pics but perhaps you can add a stock pic of the Si model to your post.
The build quality is outstanding - especially the ice-hardened case material which appears to be impervious to marks or nicks. I really love mine.
I've owned the steinhart and it's a superb watch at the price, mine would stay within 1 second a week on or off wrist. wish i hadn't sold it actually!
ktmog6uk
marchingontogether!
The centre-minute type pilot chronographs are much more legible than the 7750 based models, since the chrono minutes are read off the circumference of the full dial, rather than a small, 30-minute sub-dial.
There are now a few manufacturers making these, most of them seemingly based around a modified version of the 7750, pioneered by Sinn and Damasko but also available from Tutima. Examples include Sinn 140 & EZM10:
The IWC is the classic Pilot in my eyes but by increasing its size in recent years has made it a bit unwearable for me.
If getting another it would be an older model.
They wear pretty big.
Great watches though
I think the Stowa Flieger Chrono looks really good, it also comes in a good size and seems decent value for money
https://www.stowa.de/en/Flieger+Klassik+Chrono.htm
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Good shout on the central minute chrono hand. The A-13A is worth a mention too:Originally Posted by HappyJack
The centre-minute type pilot chronographs are much more legible than the 7750 based models, since the chrono minutes are read off the circumference of the full dial, rather than a small, 30-minute sub-dial.
There are now a few manufacturers making these, most of them seemingly based around a modified version of the 7750, pioneered by Sinn and Damasko but also available from Tutima. Examples include Sinn 140 & EZM10:
https://www.a-13a.com/shop/en/
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Like my A13A very much
Also had a couple of IWC’s as suggested plus Fortis,Steinhart and others such as Sinn and O&W
Take a look at Wempe Zeitmeister range too- great quality there....
Thanks all, some great suggestions and info, few updates added.
That Sinn EZM10 looks great. Pricey beast at £5k but there's a lot of technology in there for your money. It is quite possible that could replace my entire collection I was leaning towards the spitfire or PP IWC, with Laco in second, but that's thrown the cat among the pigeons.
Wempe seem a bit illusive to find pricing on, are they sold in the UK?
Firstly, OP, well done, good review of the options.
I have a few things to add.
Firstly, by necessity of the V7750 movement availability, almost all of these watches are not a traditional pilot/flieger design, in the sense of those shown have 3 sub-dials at 6, 9 and 12.
This is not a historically accurate design.
The traditional pilot chronograph, like all chronographs when they were manual, had sub-dials at 3 and 9, a uni-compax design.
Think of all of the French "Type" chronographs, Junghans Bund, Heuer Bund, Italian CP1 and CP2 designs, even the Lemania fleet air arm HS9. Every single one was uni-compax, and specifically procured for pilots. No sub-dial at 6, and definitely none at 12. Note that every single one of these apart from the HS9 is equipped with a rotating bezel.
Then along came automatic chronographs. A few forces bought Heuer Cal 12 examples, keeping up the uni-compax theme, but almost all went straight to central minutes, as per the Lemania 5100. Think Tutima, Porsche Design, Arctos, Tengler, Lemania SAAF and so forth. Sure, many of those also had 6, 9 and 12 sub-dials, but the 12 was a day-night indicator and was also sometimes removed (SAAF).
The V7750 has never found favour with any forces, so no issued pilots watch has had that format.
Plus one might think that the IWC-type design is an amalgam of a pre-chronograph pilott design (B-Uhr) and a complication (chronograph) that design was never furnished with, until IWC threw out the Mk X style hands wand went back to B-Uhr swords.
So, what I am coming to is that a true pilot/flieger chronograph should perhaps have one of two designs, neither of which are in the OPs post.
First design, uni-Compax (with Bezel)
Junghans Meister pilot
About £1600
Guinand 361
About €1900
Dodane Type 23
€2900
You may also want to have a look at Hanhart.
Design 2 - Central minutes
The obvious ones are above, the Sinn 140 and my personal fave, the A-13A, but B&R (the blackbird LE), Tutima (M2) and Damasko (the new DC80) all have options.
Dave
Strangely, the DC56Si model you’ve added still has the logo too far away from the date window. On mine it is much closer. I looked at various images on the web and there appear to be pics of both out there. I assume that they changed the dial at some point. Hopefully, the dial where the logo is immediately adjacent to the date window is the latest model. It might seem to be a very minor, almost pedantic point, but I agree with your comment that it really makes a difference to the overall look of the dial. Perhaps you can find a pic of a variant like mine...
Perhaps I should also add that Bremont seem to be selling watches to more active pilots units than almost anyone else in the world, albeit as a unit-pride LE watch, designed with the units.
I think they deserve a mention here, although their watches are perhaps a little more dressy and expensive. The Alt1-P is the closest to a pilot chronograph.
Dave
Great post!
I used to own a 3717, (and still would if some bastard hadn't have stolen it).
Always fancied the Steinhart too.
As a cheaper option, I've always had a soft spot for the RAF Pulsars.
Something about a plain black dial with crisp markers.
Great observation, thanks. Narrows it down nicely if one wants to stay historically accurate. Also helps to avoid the generic 7750...Firstly, OP, well done, good review of the options.
I have a few things to add.
Firstly, by necessity of the V7750 movement availability, almost all of these watches are not a traditional pilot/flieger design, in the sense of those shown have 3 sub-dials at 6, 9 and 12.
This is not a historically accurate design.
The traditional pilot chronograph, like all chronographs when they were manual, had sub-dials at 3 and 9, a uni-compax design.
Think of all of the French "Type" chronographs, Junghans Bund, Heuer Bund, Italian CP1 and CP2 designs, even the Lemania fleet air arm HS9. Every single one was uni-compax, and specifically procured for pilots. No sub-dial at 6, and definitely none at 12. Note that every single one of these apart from the HS9 is equipped with a rotating bezel.
Then along came automatic chronographs. A few forces bought Heuer Cal 12 examples, keeping up the uni-compax theme, but almost all went straight to central minutes, as per the Lemania 5100. Think Tutima, Porsche Design, Arctos, Tengler, Lemania SAAF and so forth. Sure, many of those also had 6, 9 and 12 sub-dials, but the 12 was a day-night indicator and was also sometimes removed (SAAF).
The V7750 has never found favour with any forces, so no issued pilots watch has had that format.
Plus one might think that the IWC-type design is an amalgam of a pre-chronograph pilott design (B-Uhr) and a complication (chronograph) that design was never furnished with, until IWC threw out the Mk X style hands wand went back to B-Uhr swords.
So, what I am coming to is that a true pilot/flieger chronograph should perhaps have one of two designs, neither of which are in the OPs post.
First design, uni-Compax (with Bezel)
Junghans Meister pilot
About £1600
Guinand 361
About €1900
Dodane Type 23
€2900
You may also want to have a look at Hanhart.
Design 2 - Central minutes
The obvious ones are above, the Sinn 140 and my personal fave, the A-13A, but B&R (the blackbird LE), Tutima (M2) and Damasko (the new DC80) all have options.
Dave
That Dodane looks cool, but so pricey!
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Indeed. I think the dial and hands on these are beautiful, perfect form following function, the hands differing from the civilian version.
More bi-compax than uni-compax I guess so maybe doesn’t strictly qualify, even if used by actual aircrew (navigators and helicoptor pilots, is that right?)
Last edited by alfat33; 25th May 2018 at 16:56.
FazerBoy I was wondering whether the damasko photos were mock ups or of they've done several versions, will have a hunt around. Was trying to stick to vendor photos incase they get funny about linking.
Sweets good info, will update with a note about historical accuracy. I came across a couple like that on my hunt, one was the zenith pilot chronometro which seems to be about £6k
And at the other end of the scale for 300euro there's vertigo:
The alt1-wt was on my list originally, think it deserves to be added. Alt1-p has slightly different layout, will stick with 6/9/12 sub dials otherwise the list will get huge but good to have them in the thread.
Last edited by wombleh; 25th May 2018 at 18:55.
This is a great post wombleh.
I'm am very attracted to that Vertigo?! It's more appealing than the Zenith it homages.. the text is better balanced and the hands are more visually striking.
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Have a look at Hanhart and Laco.
Great watches with an excellent pedigree.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Slightly off the mark here in terms of the original posters question but i thought some original Flieger design might inspire or help redefine the design selection.
81 years young
For those on a budget, there's always the Poljot Aviators with either the 3133 or 31681 movement:
Of course, if you want to be like a real Soviet fast jet pilot you'll need a Sturmanskie :)
Hanhart makes a magnificent watch. It's old school styling from the late 1930's so not for everyone but I love them.
Don't think anyone has mentioned the thommen airspeed yet? Was considering this at one point for daily wear. Ticks alot of my boxes anyway.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
I've had a few of the Revue Thommen Titanium Airspeeds - both the Lemania 5100 auto and the Quartz, with the L5100 emulating ETA251.262 centre minute chrono movement.
Recently picked up this RT auto - it's great size (39mm) for actual use in a cockpit, especially a small cockpit like the Pitts - and a great combination of legibility and utility - with a count-up chrono, a count-down bezel, and day/date. I was lucky to find this one, with original tritium lume that still glows:
Not exactly a flieger is it, but i think the prs17c merits a mention here. Small size, very wearable, works great on a nato bla bla bla
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Also worthy of note is the 6b scramble from gasgas. Its probably one of the few fairly expensive* watches that I've considered buying new in the past few years.
*current definition is over a grand, ymmv
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Guess technically not a flieger but Breguet have an aviation connection stronger than most and personally love this watch.
Tutima Grand Classic, the previous version to the one posted in this thread.
Sorry for the poor picture, taken yonks ago.
Interesting write up sweets.
That Zenith stands out head and shoulders above the rest.
Excellent post #11 there from sweets.
Any excuse for a photo of the Scramble on it's travels. It is absolutely one of my favourites, if not historically accurate. Catches the light beautifully.
The 6B is a lovely design.
Another centre seconds chrono..
Last edited by quietly; 27th May 2018 at 05:06.
Whenever I glance in Wempe's window, I always think their own-brand Flieger chronograph is rather handsome.
Last edited by quietly; 6th June 2018 at 03:33.
Quietly. You have some very nice watches. I am quietly impressed
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
I am very fond of my retro-look Longines, which seems to sneak in as a flieger:
Love the splash of colour on this
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Loved my hanhart, I will definitely get another one. I sold it on hers 5 or so years ago I keep hoping it will come back up for sale.
1939 replika if the current owner reads this and is thinking of moving it on please get in touch.
Great post there.Firstly, OP, well done, good review of the options.
I have a few things to add.
Firstly, by necessity of the V7750 movement availability, almost all of these watches are not a traditional pilot/flieger design, in the sense of those shown have 3 sub-dials at 6, 9 and 12.
This is not a historically accurate design.
The traditional pilot chronograph, like all chronographs when they were manual, had sub-dials at 3 and 9, a uni-compax design.
Think of all of the French "Type" chronographs, Junghans Bund, Heuer Bund, Italian CP1 and CP2 designs, even the Lemania fleet air arm HS9. Every single one was uni-compax, and specifically procured for pilots. No sub-dial at 6, and definitely none at 12. Note that every single one of these apart from the HS9 is equipped with a rotating bezel.
Then along came automatic chronographs. A few forces bought Heuer Cal 12 examples, keeping up the uni-compax theme, but almost all went straight to central minutes, as per the Lemania 5100. Think Tutima, Porsche Design, Arctos, Tengler, Lemania SAAF and so forth. Sure, many of those also had 6, 9 and 12 sub-dials, but the 12 was a day-night indicator and was also sometimes removed (SAAF).
The V7750 has never found favour with any forces, so no issued pilots watch has had that format.
Plus one might think that the IWC-type design is an amalgam of a pre-chronograph pilott design (B-Uhr) and a complication (chronograph) that design was never furnished with, until IWC threw out the Mk X style hands wand went back to B-Uhr swords.
So, what I am coming to is that a true pilot/flieger chronograph should perhaps have one of two designs, neither of which are in the OPs post.
First design, uni-Compax (with Bezel)
Junghans Meister pilot
About £1600
Guinand 361
About €1900
Dodane Type 23
€2900
You may also want to have a look at Hanhart.
Design 2 - Central minutes
The obvious ones are above, the Sinn 140 and my personal fave, the A-13A, but B&R (the blackbird LE), Tutima (M2) and Damasko (the new DC80) all have options.
Dave
Since I'm pretty much fond of aviation themed chronographs, I'm also for any clarification on this subject.
First of all it would be nice to clarify once for all the use of "compax" on chronographs. (I'm alone with doubts here maybe?)
I was already corrected on this very Forum that compax has nothing to do with the number of sub-dials rather the number of complications.
You are right that due to Universal Geneve "Uni-Compax" was always used for two sub-dial layout.
So beside the running second there is only the minute totalisator.
However when they added the hour totalisator to the dial it was still called simply "Compax". Which is in line with the complication based logic. - Still only chronograph as complication.
So theoretically a simple chronograph regardless how many sub-dials it has would be a "Uni-Compax" design. (I'm happy to be corrected here.)
So far after a quick Google Research "Bi-compax" was not used by Universal Geneve when a second complication was added.
The chronograph with date from UG was called "Dato-Compax"
And then with three complications, the "Tri-Compax" (chronograph, date, moon-Phase)
(All UG watch pictures are stolen from the net)
I appreciate the great knowledge shared in the post regarding issued chronographs however I'm sure that some details are missing for the complete picture.
Some manual chronographs of course did have hour totalisator at 6 like the UG above.
And some were definitely issued to air forces like this Omega (from my small collection):
(Issued to both Argentine and Hungarian Air Force in the fifties.)
And finally I would definitely give some credit to the 7750 because it did find its way to military pilots as issued timepiece.
Two examples here. Heuer Montreal and Fortis Fliegerchronograph, both have been issued to Hungarian Air Force.
Picture is from this great article about those watches (only Hungarian but with nice pictures as well):
http://trendmagazin.hu/cikk/a-papai-...gyedi-karoraja
In fact the Heuer even made it to the space and amongst others (like Seiko and Omega) did it prior Sinn 140.
(So Sinn was in best case the 4th automatic chrono in space?)
We can say that from Fortis it was a kind of marketing exercise to supply watches to a smaller air force (we are talking about 200 pieces).
However the pilots were testing the watches before the limited run was ordered and proposed modifications which were applied on the watches later on.
The limited run got even the squadron's logo on the dial. But again these were genuinely issued pieces, not only marketing driven limited Edition.
Here is my Fortis Pilot Professional Chronograph with the squadron's logo at 9 and text around the totalisator at 6:
And Fortis logo appeared on the side of some MIG-21 and MIG-29 later on. (To have advertisement on military vehicles still in service must be also quite unique by the way.)
(Source: Fortis)
Last but not least the CSAR Pilot Chronograph from Marathon.
I wouldn't call it issued in a classical way although it has been designed to meet all Military standards like any other Marathon watches and available from the same sources to military personnel in US and Canadian Forces.
And - I suspect due to some clever marketing work - the first batch of these chronographs were issued to pilots in the USS Nimitz carrier strike group back in 2007.
As one of the five original manufacturers (along with IWC, Lange, Laco and Stowa) of the Luftwaffe "B-Uhr" Flieger during WWII, Wempe "own brand" has good heritage indeed.
Here is my old explanation of all terms Compax
Essentially Compax means a full 12-hr chrono.
Uni-Compax is a simplification of it (loses the 12-hr register)
And so forth.
Until recently Compax was uniquely a UG term, registered by them and used on their own dials and no-one else's.
So my position would be that we owe it to them to use it correctly.
And yes, I know it is pedantic, but as with all things watch-related, it is all about the details.
Dave
ps - yes, there were pilot chronos with 3 sub-dials at 3, 6 and 9, but not may, unless they were Lemania-driven ones.
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