Navigator Watch, what's your favorite and why?

What's your ideal Navigator watch?? Type-6 or other...


Lightweight, made to Type-6 specs, fresh tritium illumination. Clicking bezel flush fitting to case, recessed crystal below bezel. parkerized / beadblasted crown, subdued color case. Also, this one has replaced spring bars to strong single flange, single shoulder stainless steel type.

[gray]

But that's not what I was expecting to see as a Navigator watch, nice though.

How are you defining "Navigator"? What are the defining specs?

Many thanks

[abraxas]

This one:
http://home.t-online.de/home/konrad.knirim/a012mone.htm

:twisted:
JD

[Crusader]

But that's not what I was expecting to see as a Navigator watch, nice though.

How are you defining "Navigator"? What are the defining specs?

Many thanks

"Navigator" is the (American) technical term used in the original mil-spec for this type of watch of 1991 (see http://www.khs-watch.com/dl/Mil_W_46374F.pdf). It is type no. 6 in this spec (the other five are mechanical and quartz field watches), therefore it is occasionally referred to as a "type-6 watch". For navigator watches there are tougher requirements than for the "Field Watches" described in the same spec in several respects (usually flight-related: altitude, anti-magnetism), and especially the second-time-zone bezel. By the way, the F-spec has now been superseded by the G-version, but the fundamental definition of a navigator watch in the U.S. military remains the same.

It is interesting to note that the British mil-spec, Def-Stan 66-4 refers to "Watch, wrist, electronic, navigator, luminous and non-luminous" (see http://www.dstan.mod.uk/index.html, then go to chapter 66), but the only watch pictured in that spec looks like a G10 (pp. 11-12) and not like a flight chronograph at all. But from other posts I was under the impression that British flight crews are routinely issued the Seiko chronograph, not the G10 "field watch".

Can somebody perhaps elucidate what a "Navigator" watch in British MoD technical parlance is?

Best regards,

Crusader

[Crusader]

This one:
http://home.t-online.de/home/konrad.knirim/a012mone.htm

:twisted:
JD

This is quite an interesting watch. Does anybody know how the "mirrored numbers" were actually used in navigation? I have seen them very rarely, and I have no idea how they are put to use.

Thank you and best regards,

Crusader

[swanbourne]

This one:
http://home.t-online.de/home/konrad.knirim/a012mone.htm

:twisted:
JD

This is quite an interesting watch. Does anybody know how the "mirrored numbers" were actually used in navigation? I have seen them very rarely, and I have no idea how they are put to use.

Thank you and best regards,

Crusader

Wasn't it something to do with reading the reflected numbers in the aircraft canopy/windscreen?

Eddie

[Crusader]

Wasn't it something to do with reading the reflected numbers in the aircraft canopy/windscreen?

Eddie

Aristo-Watch have a re-issue/homage model out, the "Sextant" (which I cannot presently view because I am at my company PC and suspicious addresses are blocked) which is supposed to have mirrored numbers, too. The website says only 26 were made in WWII and were be used in conjunction with a (mirrored) sextant. See http://www.aristo-watch.de/aristo.htm

I am a troglodyte as far as pre-GPS navigational aids are concerned (have you ever wondered why some crusades missed their marks, like capturing Constantinople instead of conquering Egypt? Now you know ... :D ). But maybe the reference to a sextant can be a hint for somebody else on the forum?

Best regards,

Crusader

[Jeroen]

a device to measure the angle and a certain object, in shipping usual the angle between the horizon and a celestial body (sun, moon, stars) the angle with the exact GMT ( did someone say Harrison ?) can tell you your longitude on the earths map.




But as said a sextant is a very precise angle measurement device which by use of two cleverly positioned mirrors (one of them follows the angle of the device) measures an angle.
If you look through the viewfinder of a sextant you look straight at the horizon and see the other object of your measurement positioned exactly next to that view projected on the fixed mirror by the movable mirror. the way you hold a sextant makes it easy to read you watch in the fixed mirror at the same time :)

The rockets (V1) that where exploited in WWII followed parabolical trajectories so the angle according to which they where shot was critical for the trajectory they would follow. Therefore Werner von Braun used modified sextants to follow the first part of the trajectory and with these measurements he could correct the launch angle. In that process they also needed a very precise watch which they could read while measuring the angle with the sextant... and so these mirror numbered watches were issued....


BTW the name sextant has to do with the fact that the maximum measured angle is one sixth of a circle (so 60 degrees) long ago they used octants which could measure angles up to one eight of a circle (45 degrees).....

ok off my soapbox now....

Jeroen

for those of you interested in some fo the history of navigation and instruments used befor the sextant (also for angle measurements) have a look at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/longitude/secrets.html

and if you want to know why a chrometre is important play their game 'find your longitude' http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/longitude/find.html so you all finally know why chronometre rating is important :wink:

My idea for Navigator's watch is loosely set as any watch capable of telling multiple timezones. The Navigator watch affords the user the means to manage two or more timezones, in simple day to day activities such as doing business across the globe or just finding if you buddy overseas is seeing daylight or sleeping in darkness. The Navigator watch is useful for many things in our global culture.

[Jeroen]

but for many navigators (flying, and [especially submerged] shipping)

A lot of navigation is done by what they call a guessed fix. you take your true (chart) course (not the one your compass is lying to you....) and if you know your boat/ flying true speed (corrected for current, drift or winds) and your lapsed time since your last fixed point on your map, you have your current position.... the faster your vehicle moves the more accurate your time-lapse measurement should be (in shipping minutes are good enough while in todays' flying it's more about seconds). Any accurate watch with a bidirectional rotating bezel will do for this type of navigation.

For me the ultimate navigatorswatch should be chronometre rated with a GMT hand(for calculating longitudes), have a bi-directional rotating bezel (minutes) for time lapse measurements and for ETA (expected time of arrival)predictions, a chronograph for short time measurements (3 point fixes, speed corrections etc.) and a moonphase for calculations for high and low tide and spring and neaptide.... :shock:

I know I have expensive taste..... :(


(somebody better burn my soapbox now........ :twisted: )


Jeroen

[tempus]

Wow, thanks for all the interesting info Jeroen. I've learnt something new today. :D

[Jeroen]

thanks for the kind remark :D

This is what this forum is about for me.... learned, had quite some laughs and certainly as many pints or glasses of Glendronach because of it...

I've learned new things from other WIS' here too ...

and not always about watches.... :wink: (who said K...?)


Jeroen

[abraxas]

Aristo-Watch have a re-issue/homage model out, the "Sextant" (which I cannot presently view because I am at my company PC and suspicious addresses are blocked) which is supposed to have mirrored numbers, too. The website says only 26 were made in WWII and were be used in conjunction with a (mirrored) sextant. See http://www.aristo-watch.de/aristo.htm

Crusader

Vollmer also make a ho-ma-ge to the Lange:
http://www.gntwatch.com/vowatch.php?id=286

This is the Aristo Link:
http://www.aristo-watch.de/sextant.htm

The navigation wristwatches from IWC, Lange & Soehne, Wempe, Walter Storz (Stowa) and Lacher & Co (Laco) were and are still horological specialties. They were regulated as navigation chronometers and tested, piece-by-piece, by the chronometer department in Gesundbrunnen near Glashuette. The aircraft navigators wore these watches with long leather straps above the sleeve.

At times, an extraordinary item of this kind of Lange navigation wristwatch will be seen at auctions. The dial is marked with 'W-SS" and the minutes are printed in mirror reverse characters. Hermann Goering is said to have had one of his own. (From my files)

JD