Do you remember the 1 to 1 scale Spitfire MK IX aircraft placed just amidst the IWC booth at SIHH 2019? The “Silver Spitfire – The Longest Flight” project has this week officially started. Initially built in 1943 and fully restored by a team of specialists, the aircraft has undergone its last month of testing, before formally taking off and circumnavigating the globe.
The “Silver Spitfire – The Longest Flight” project, the most important project that involves IWC this year, along with the brand’s agreement with the US Navy‘s Fighter Weapons School, officially debuted at the Goodwood Aero Drome. Piloted by Matt Jones and Steve Boultbee Brooks, this historic aircraft will visit 30 countries, including Italy, covering more than 43,000 kilometers.
Both pilots wrapped around their wrist the official watch of the project, made in a total 250 pieces: Matt Jones and Steve Boultbee Brooks are flying with an IWC Pilot‘s Watch Timezoner Spitfire Edition “The Longest Flight” watch, which is the second, yet technically simplified version, of one of the most original and useful timepieces geared towards globetrotters, in the industry.
Featuring an only time display, the IWC Pilot‘s Watch Timezoner Spitfire Edition “The Longest Flight” has abandoned the Flyback chronograph original function but holds the main feature that made the Timezoner so distinctive, incredibly useful and an out of the ordinary timepiece within the Pilot‘s Watch Spitfire collection.
By pushing down the black ceramic inlay on opposite sides with the thumb and forefinger, you can rotate the bezel and turn it to the “12 o’clock” position. As you rotate it, a gear train lets the hour hand, the date, and 24-hour disc rotate accordingly forward or backward and in one-hour steps, thus showing the time of the selected city engraved on the bezel. A small “S” close to each city’s name helps adjust time according to the chosen town’s daylight savings time too. The Timezoner‘s primary function will be helpful to both pilots; also, during operation, the hour hand, date and 24 hours move, without affecting the minutes and seconds hands.
All in all, it is a mechanical marvel that allows you to change timezone at the push of the bezel without unscrewing the winding crown. The dial is a combination of white and vintage cream luminous markers while the strap is made of green fabric and adopts a folding buckle with IWC logo: it is a nod to vintage aviator’s watches and the materials found inside a Spitfire‘s cabin.
The IWC Pilot‘s Watch Timezoner Spitfire Edition “The Longest Flight” is 46mm wide and 15.2mm thick and, given its big onion-shaped winding crown, has an IWC Big Pilot‘s Watch feel to it, even if there are technically different: the Timezoner comes with the IWC–manufacture caliber 82760, featuring a Pellaton winding mechanism and a 60–hour maximum power reserve.
Ahead of the flight, IWC hosted more than 400 guests, including brand ambassadors like David Coulthard and Rosamund Pike, who signed the aircraft’s fuselage before it took-off. Good luck to the Boultbee Flight Academy‘s pilots and see you soon in Italy, after the summer break.
(Photo credit: Peter Tung for Horbiter®, courtesy of IWC Watches)
Gaetano C @Horbiter®
