Pilot watch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A pilot watch is a wristwatch with special features (compass, stopwatch, etc.), traditionally used by the pilots of aircraft.
[edit] Origin
Although the wrist watch (first sold by Patek Phillipe Co. in the late 1880s) was originally a woman’s accessory, it was eventually found to be a useful tool for pilots.
The first such use was by the Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont. While testing out his new aeroplane in the early 1900s, Dumont found it necessary to keep track of time. He asked his friend Louis Cartier for help, and Cartier built him a leather bound wrist watch. Dumont used his popularity in Paris to popularize the item and sell it to other men.
[edit] Military use
Wrist watches gained more popularity in World War I, when officers began to realize that they were more convenient than pocket watches in battle. Also, because the pocket watch was more of a middle class item, the working class soldiers usually owned wrist watches, which they brought with them to their service. Artillery and infantry officers depended on these watches as battles became more complicated, because attacks needed to be coordinated at precise moments. Wrist watches were found to be needed in the air as much as on the ground: military pilots found them more convenient than pocket watches for the same reasons as Santos-Dumont had. Eventually, army contractors manufactured watches en masse for both infantry soldiers and pilots. In World War II, a popular watch of most American airmen was the A-11: it had a simple black face and clear white numbers for easy readability, and it met the aviator’s basic needs.
After the war, the returning officers kept their watches and wore them back home, popularizing them among the middle class. The middle class helped the item develop into more than a means of keeping time. The standards for pilot watches were raised, and they became much more advanced, including features like chronometers and slide rules. (Chronometers are clocks especially used in navigation, designed to have sufficient long-term accuracy and precision, while slide rules are mechanical calculators that can make rapid, approximate scientific and engineering calculations, such as time, distance and speed equations.) The popularization of the pilot watch among the middle class also made it an accessory; companies designed impressive looking watches out of stainless steel, leather, and mineral crystal, with showy gold and silver accents, elaborate faces covered in various numbers, rotating crowns, and numerous widgets all in one package.
