What is the best aviation watch (Zulu time)?

[A Squared]

Here's the difference:

Walk into some of the meeting's I frequently have to with a Casio G Shock on your wrist and you lose. Literally and Figuratively. Rolex, Patek, IWC, Omega, Breguet, Cartier,etc. They may not be the best at timekeeping, unnecessary they aren't; they're essential.

Wow, all I can say is you must consort with some spectacularly shallow individuals.

 

[GVFlyer]

Where? Well, if I'm somewhere where time is critical, I'll proabaly be someplace where I have access to numerous methods of reliably determining the time. Where will you be when your swiss chronometer takes a dump? ...and don't even attempt to suggest they never fail. I'd be willing to wager that changing batteries in a quartz watch occurs less frequntly than unscheduled maintenece in a swiss watch. Besides, I've never had a battery fail unexpectedly, typically what happens is the watch stops keeping time accurately, and starts keeping time like a swiss chronometer; losing a couple of seconds a day instead of the more normal a couple of seconds a month.

Sorry, you are doomed to abject failure if you're trying to justify a multi-thousand dollar swiss watch on either reliability or accuracy. It's a vanity purchase, plain and simple. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's your money, but lets be honest about what it is: Expensive and unnecessary jewelry.

You are just wrong. I have never had a Rolex or Omega fail. I use Swiss autowinders because of their reliability. I just bought a new Rolex GMT Master to replace one I had worn for 20 years, not because it had ever failed, but because I liked the new style better. I got $2500 for my old one so it didn't cost me anything to own it. I suspect that when the time comes to sell my current Rolex, I will have no trouble getting the $4500 back that I paid for it.

I bought an Omega SeaMaster GMT when they came out with the white faced model and it has performed flawlessly since purchase. My other Omega, a FlightMaster, I purchased while in military flight school. It has been cleaned and regulated once since then. It still keeps time within Swiss Chronograph Standards and works perfectly.

A battery operated watch is not an option for me. In the places I fly I am not going to find anyone to replace a battery in an electronic watch when it fails.




GV

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

You are just wrong. I have never had a Rolex or Omega fail. I use Swiss autowinders because of their reliability. I just bought a new Rolex GMT Master to replace one I had worn for 20 years, not because it had ever failed, but because I liked the new style better. I got $2500 for my old one so it didn't cost me anything to own it. I suspect that when the time comes to sell my current Rolex, I will have no trouble getting the $4500 back that I paid for it.

I bought an Omega SeaMaster GMT when they came out with the white faced model and it has performed flawlessly since purchase. My other Omega, a FlightMaster, I purchased while in military flight school. It has been cleaned and regulated once since then. It still keeps time within Swiss Chronograph Standards and works perfectly.

A battery operated watch is not an option for me. In the places I fly I am not going to find anyone to replace a battery in an electronic watch when it fails.




GV

For $4500 you could buy multiple quartz watches for redundacy.... and invest the other $4400.....

No doubt the Omega Seamaster GMT is a nice watch......

But let's be pragmatic here.....

 

[A Squared]

You are just wrong. I have never had a Rolex or Omega fail. I use Swiss autowinders because of their reliability.

Sorry, I've heard too many swiss watch owners speak of repairs to thier watches to buy the notion that they never fail. Perhaps you have had very good experience with yours, as you claim. That's nice, but you completely and utterly miss the point. My bad for making it obliquely and assuming others could follow.

Heres the point: Even if we accept the notion that an expensive swiss watch is completely and utterly, 100% failure proof, for all of eternity, so what? Ordinary human beings (pilots even) are virtually never in a position where the failure of thier wrist jewelry if of any real consequence. Remember, I was responding to Swass's silly claim that a battery failure in a quartz watch would cause serious problems, thus making a swiss chronometer a necessity. Whether it's your timex ironman or your Swiss choronometer that fails, you can easily get the time by looking at the MFD, (please don't tell me that Gulfstream forgot to give you a means of telling time in the G-V) checking your cell phone, twisting a single knob on the KLN89b (if you're stuck in the last century) or asking your co-pilot. It's just not going to leave you in dire straits.

Even if you intentionally placed yourself in a situation where accurate time was critical; say you're sailing around the world, and making it a point of pride to navigate solely by astronomic means, not using GPS, or even using the time capabilities of a GPS receiver, and even eschewing using a broadcast time standard, you would still be far better off by taking three $50 quartz watches and a supply of batteries than a $4500 chonometer, as the time from the quartz watches would be much more accurate, and the redundancy would provide much more reliability. (3 watches would provide cross checking with a tie-breaker when one started to lose time)

I just bought a new Rolex GMT Master to replace one I had worn for 20 years, not because it had ever failed, but because I liked the new style better. I got $2500 for my old one so it didn't cost me anything to own it. I suspect that when the time comes to sell my current Rolex, I will have no trouble getting the $4500 back that I paid for it.

Ahhh, I see that you aren't any better at finance than you are at deciphering indirect commumication.

OK, first off $2500 today isn't worth anywhere near $2500, 20 years ago. If you use the Bureau of Labor statistics' Consumer Price Index, you'll find that it's worth about $1359, so right off the bat you've lost $1141. Now, having your money tied up in a wach has a cost. It used to be that oppotunity cost was one of those things they taught in the first week of freshman economics, don't they do that any more? If you had invested that $2400 in a mutual fund which showed an average return of 8% PA, the value of the mutual fund now would be $12,317, so without mixing in your loss due to inflation, it cost you $9,817 to wear that watch on your wrist. (even at 5% interest, your cost is still about $4200) So yeah, it cost you a fair amount of money to own jewlery

A battery operated watch is not an option for me. In the places I fly I am not going to find anyone to replace a battery in an electronic watch when it fails.

Boy, the precession of silly rationalizations just never quits. I seem to get more then 2 years use on the battery in my cheap Seiko I bought used in a pawnshop 20 years ago before it starts keeping time like a swiss chornometer. If I was really worried about the battery failing ald leaving me in mortal peril, I could have the battery replaced every year. I think it costs $10. You do return to civilization (civilization being defined as a place that has a jewelry shop capable of replacing a watch battery) more than once every 2 years, don't you?

Again, If you really are in situations where a failed watch would cause you serious inconvenience (which I don't for a moment believe) You would be far safer from whatever imagined dangers with 3 timex ironman watches and a couple of spare batteries. I believe that the ironman has a back that can be removed withe a miniature phillips screwdiver, available from Radio Shack for about $2.

Look, just give up trying to justify an expensive swiss watch on accuracy, reliability, necessity or (especially ridiculously) economics. Let's be honest, you weart an expensive piece of jewelry because you like to wear an expensive piece of jewelry. It makes you feel good for whatever reason. Fine, I'm cool with that. It's your money, and presumably you're not starving your kids to buy the watch. Some of the things I do with my money can't be justified on a rational basis either. So you like expensive jewelry, nothing wrong with that, I suppose. When you start trying to rationalize it as a necessity, you fail, and you make yourself look silly in the process.

 

[Swass]

Funny, maybe that's the reason your stuck up in Alaska flying a dinosaur.

Nice attitude. Looks like you have it all figured out there buddy.

 

[A Squared]

Funny, maybe that's the reason your stuck up in Alaska flying a dinosaur.

Nice attitude. Looks like you have it all figured out there buddy.

Typical. Can't argue the issue at hand, just resort to an inane and irrelevant personal attack. I would have expected nothing less.

 

[Shiny Side Up]

There I was, in heavy IMC, one engine shut down, fuel critical. Luckily, my (insert watch brand here) was still ticking...


For me, its about weight. I guess because I started wearing one fairly young (around 9 or 10) I feel completely naked without a watch on. And it has to be heavy, which is why I would never wear a light, cheap, digital.

A Squared makes a valid point - it IS about appearance. I can't think of a situation where if my watch went T/U it would have dire consequences. Lets be real here, girls can wear tons of jewelry, but for most guys the only jewelry we wear is a watch, unless you are still rocking your gold chains and ID bracelet from back in the day.

To each his own.

 

[JimNtexas]

Years ago when I was in the 90TFS at Clark AB, someone had the bright idea that we needed some 'escape and evasion' training. They gathered up some crews unlucky enough to be hanging around the duty desk, took them to the edge of the base where there was a big field full of elephant grass.

They had hired some locals to be the hunters, and they told the 'escapees' to take off into the grass and hide from the local 'hunters', who would give them a five minute head start. Kind of like that movie where some rich guys take a poor person to their hunting lodge, and then tell the poor person that after breakfast they're going hunting for poor people, and he'd better start running.

Well, everyone had a fine time playing hide and seek, and eventually everyone was gathered back up and taken back to the squadron.

Typical military silliness, but you wouldn't think it would ruin someone's life, would you? Well it dang near ruined one guy's life.

As we are driving back to the squadron the guy grabs his wrist and screams "Where's my Rolex!". To make a long story short, the poor smuck spent most of the rest of his tour out in that field, combing the ground for his lost Rolex. He was never the same after losing his <strike>manhood</strike> watch.

But he was pretty impressive in flight briefings up until that happened.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

A couple of weeks ago a FedEx pilot was driving to work in his new Porsche that he acquired via the recent TA.....

When he opened the door to get out a delivery truck hit the door and it flew off into space.... before it hit the pavement the pilot was on his cell phone calling security....

When the rent a cop showed up... the FedEx pilot proceeded to chastise him for the condition of his Porsche claiming even the repair will never make it right...

The security guard sighed and said ... you pilots are all the same.... your door fell off and you arm went with it..... all you care about is your crap...you don't even realize you're bleeding all over the place....


The pilot yelled... oh sh!t...where's my Rolex!!

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

A women called down to the front desk and cried "There is a naked pilot running in the hallway!"

The front desk said... "ma'am, this is a respectable hotel... besides, how do you know he is a pilot?"

The lady said... " cause he has a big Rolex watch, a little d*ck and he stole my newspaper!!"