I have always been intrigued by ads for pilot watches and never understood what they were meant to be.
jb747 and anyone else who has been a military pilot will recall that the pilot watches the Air Force and Navy issued were about as reliable as any really bad watch you could buy at a $2 market.
The ads are amusing. Whilst some of the airline boys do like their pretty watches (Breitling is the most common), the vast majority use nothing but their phone on the ground, or the aircraft clock(s) in flight. I'm not even sure what most of the numbers on those wrist weights are supposed to represent.
Watch story...
Before doing the RAAF Pilots' course, I was an Observer...basically the navy version of an aircraft navigator. So, the nav sections of the P course, were very interesting, but not conceptually different to anything I'd been doing in the previous few years. On the final nav test, it was traditional that you'd be given some form of change that would force you to rework part of the flight. This was a hi-low nav, with a target at the end, and an expected time of plus or minus 15 seconds. Generally, you'd have to gain a small amount of time, or lose a minute or two...or perhaps one of the areas you were supposed to fly over is now a gun emplacement, and you need to miss it by 5 miles (and still hit the target time).
As we were climbing out to the north of Pearce, the flight commander in the back seat came up with a new time on target. As expected....but when I looked at it I realised he wasn't taking a minute even two away, but more like 20. Eek. There was no way going faster was going to be much help...the jet wouldn't go that fast (the nav was planned at 300 kts, and the max was 370k (at Pearce, both Nowra and Williamtown used 450k). I was going to have to lose about 100 miles out of the nav route, and as I was headed away from the target...I needed to come up with a plan quickly. The only way I could see to do it was to lose virtually all of the triangular route, and simply aim at a spot about 20 miles from the target, and fix it from there. So, talk to ATC, carry out a 90º right turn, and go for it. This was all compounded by the fact that the low level maps were made up as strips, and were only about 10 miles from side to side. My new route wouldn't even join the map until almost the end. There was a large tower that was almost on track that I decided to use to get me back on to the planned track, and as a marker to fix the timing. So, use the high level map until I could get back on the low level, go as fast as possible, and keep the mental maths going as I ripped along at 200' AGL. And spend the time wondering what on earth had got into the instructor to come up with such a large change.
Eventually close in on the tower, hit track a little early, go through slightly to fix the timing, and arrive over the target on time, almost to the second. Yay. Climb out and head back towards Pearce. There had been pretty much total silence in the back seat right through this, and it was now broken by the instructor asking what on earth I thought I was doing. Answer...hitting the target right on the new time you gave me, sir. Pregnant pause...followed by "xx_X, my bloody watch has stopped".
Outcome...perfect score for the final nav test.
