Several years ago, my good friend Michael Stuffler, German pilot’s watch expert, told me the reason contemporary pilot’s watches are so popular is that they still breathe the “kerosene tainted air of former times.” Indeed, a pilot’s watch has a special aura, apart from its characteristics such as readability, robustness and utilitarian appearance. And it is this aura that makes them somehow immortal and more desirable.
MODERN BUNDESWEHR CHRONOGRAPHS
In 1949, at the beginning stages of the Cold War, the United States and its European allies created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance to counter Soviet influence. In the mid-1950s, West Germany established their armed forces, known as the Bundeswehr. The Bundeswehr were issued three German pilot’s chronographs beginning with the Hanhart 417 in the late ’50s, followed by Junghans’ J88 in the ’60s, and finally Heuer 1550 SG for most of the ’70s. While these three chronographs are highly collectible and legendary, I consider them predecessors to the modern Bundeswehr chronograph design code. All three watches also had complicated hand-winding movements that were expensive to purchase and service.
At the end of the 1970s, the Bundeswehr decided to open the bid to German companies for a new pilot’s chronograph.
