The Best Pilot's Watch

When I was training to get my private pilot's license (which, as any certificated pilot will tell you, is not a license but a certificate) I went on the hunt for the perfect pilot's watch. Since every student pilot does this, and since it wouldn't surprise me if at least one student pilot were to one day read this post, I'd like to save that person a little time and energy.

The best pilot's watch is a Timex IRONMAN Trathlon 30-Lap (product code T5E9019J). It costs $50 direct from Timex, or about $35 at Target.

There are a few things a pilot's watch needs to do well:

• Accurately and precisely provide the time, both local and GMT (or "Zulu time", which in non-aviation-speak is simply support for a second time zone and 24-hour display)
• Be readable at glance in turbulence and at night
• Have a simple timer function

There are also a few things pilot's watch should not do:

• Serve as a backup compass or altimeter (if you're missing either of these instruments, your attention should almost certainly be focused somewhere other than on your wrist)
• Cost so much that you can't or won't immediately replace it if it breaks or is lost (in fact, I suggest buying a spare and keeping it in your flight bag)
• Try to impress people (the words most frequently uttered immediately before a private plane crash are "Watch this!", and are almost always spoken by someone wearing an $8,000 watch)

As a pilot's watch, my Timex does the things it should—it has the right features and is incredibly readable in both direct sunlight and a darkened cockpit—and doesn't do the things it shouldn't. You can no doubt find another pilot's watch as good, but I doubt you can find one better.

There's a MySQL/Oracle analogy hiding in there somewhere, but I'll leave that as a exercise for the reader.

Comments

[Venkatasubramanian]

Sir why do you say a pilots watch must not have a compass and an altimeter?? it serves only as a back up coz if uve lost your vaccumn sys then this would be quite helpful coz you can get gyro vectors from the atc?

[Pilot]

I agree that using a compass or a altimeter on a watch is a terrible idea. Also the ones with flight computers are tiny and I would fly the plane into the ground before getting any useful information. I started out on the search for the best pilot watch - The IWC is nice, but cost more than my plane. I think the following functions are critical: dual time zone, multiple timers and large lighted display. I found the Timex 5E361 is best because it can display 2 timezones at once. I leave one on Zulu and one on local. The other functions are the same as you mention above except it has 50 timers. Cost $58 at Walmart.

[Charlie Wood]

That 5E361 looks nicer than the one I have too! $49 at Amazon:

http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000936JKI

-c

[Barry]

I totally agree that this is the perfect pilot's watch and would add that the stopwatch function with lap timer is very useful for timing two things at once on the same display. Hit start at takeoff and hit start again at the beginning of any other event (new leg of the course or the beginning of a holding pattern, etc.). The total elapsed time for the flight displays in the top line while the bottom line displays the elapsed time for the current leg (or event). It even displays a lap number which indicates which leg of the course you are timing, so if you forget to restart it for the new leg, that can be verified on the display. This method also eliminates the need to ever press and hold the reset button in flight.

The interface is clean, simple and uncluttered. Mine came with a slightly different case and was only $30 at Target.