IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition "SFTI” in black ceramic and Ceratanium®

15 October 2020 | IWC , Military Watches

There is no watch brand as connected to the modern world of aviation as IWC Schaffhausen. The IWC Pilot's Watch collection is the most admired collection of contemporary pilot's watches, and the agreement they signed with the Top Gun school, the US Navy's top-performing pilots, adds awareness to the current product offering. All the timepieces showcase in-house calibers and proprietary new alloys like Ceratanium®, exclusively available (in the Pilot's Watch collection) on the IWC Pilot's Watch Double Chronograph Top Gun Ceratanium® so far.

Jim "Guido" Di Matteo is a retired Top Gun pilot (and friend of the brand); he stands as the most decorated instructor of the Fighter Weapons School, and one of the selected few to wrap around his wrist an IWC chronograph showcasing the Fighter Weapons School patch. The latter is a two-register chronograph with Flyback function, highly coveted by enthusiasts and amateur pilots alike, who will never be able to get one. It is to that timepiece that IWC took inspiration when conceiving the IWC Pilot's Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition "SFTI" in black ceramic and Ceratanium®, a limited edition variant of the standard IWC reference IW389101; a 44,5mm large and 15,7mm thick chronograph powered by in-house caliber IWC 69380. On the new IWC reference 389104 engineers replaced titanium (case back, Chrono pushers, crown, clasp) with Ceratanium®, thus creating the Top Gun collection's first chronograph to adopt both materials.

The first one, ceramic, is widely appreciated for its uncommon resistance to scratches, and hardness, in Vickers, which is second to diamond; the second is a compound developed and patented by IWC combining the mechanical resistance of titanium (along with its lightness) to ceramic's scratch resistance. The icing on the cake is, aesthetically, the central second's hand whose counterweight is in the shape of a red fighter. The IWC Pilot's Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition "SFTI" in black ceramic and Ceratanium® will come as a single batch of 1500 pieces. It is the closest limited series to what Top Gun pilots while flying.