The changing ways of warfare led to dramatic changes in watch design, especially with the advent of airplanes and their use on the battlefield. In 1904, the French-Brazilian engineer Alberto Santos-Dumont, who competed with the Wright Brothers for the length of the day, proposed to the watchmaker Louis Cartier (Louis Cartier) that he needed a watch that could fly even if he was always in control of the joystick. The timepiece that can know the time has also become the wrist timepiece Cartier Santos specially designed by Louis Cartier for Santos-Dumont. Cartier Santos has undoubtedly become the starting point for flight timepieces. However, by today’s standards, Cartier Santos is only a serious watch, and it does not have the essence of a real flying watch. It is the Germans who want to make a comeback from the failure of the First World War to truly realize the standard of flying watches.
After World War I, Germany's colonies were partitioned and its armaments were highly restricted. When Hitler came to power, he quickly violated the Treaty of Versailles and rebuilt the air force at high speed. During the global economic depression and World War I, when the vitality of the countries had not yet recovered, the military factories of Nazi Germany had used the manufacture of civil aviation transport aircraft as an excuse to frantically build the twin-engine multi-purpose fighter He-111. What followed was the need for a large number of pilots and the flight watches they wore. In the 1930s, Hitler secretly ordered the German Ministry of Aviation to conduct a single purchase: pilot watches for large-scale distribution. This historical material more or less proves that Hitler had prepared the theme of mechanized warfare early on, and at the same time allowed the German Ministry of Aviation to invent and establish the specifications for flying watches. Using the current similar products as a reference, take the Lindbergh watch of the same name produced by Longines in 1931 as an example. This watch is equipped with a flight slider that can be converted by the dial, which can be used to calculate the speed, altitude and distance http://www.watchbuyoff.ru.
For the gravity environment and severe combat conditions during flight: the watch travels accurately, is anti-collision and shock-resistant, and is anti-magnetic; the second hand has a zero-return function, which is convenient for the crew to reduce the time difference of individual actions during combat. It is easy to read, so the diameter of the watch should not be less than 55mm. The design is for the purpose of identification at a glance. The dial is mainly dark, and the numbers are light-colored (luminous materials will be used in the future) Arabic hour markers. The large crown makes it easy to adjust the time even with gloves on, and the strap is an almost modern NATO strap that can be worn directly over clothing.
However, the design obtained by the German Ministry of Aviation did not add the flight slider to the design. It was not until the addition of the flight slider in the 1950s that the circular slider on the watch was used to multiply and divide. Includes conversions for average speed, distance, fuel consumption, vertical rate, miles, kilometers, and nautical miles.
In addition, there is Greenwich Mean Time, GMT, and because of this system, there is a concept of time zone. Since flying can quickly pass through different time zones, this function was added to later flying watches. Initially, the GMT time between the two places was developed to meet the requirements of pilots, so as to represent the difference between the original departure time and the local time.
