The ultimate "pilot" watch.

Hard to imagine.....

That companies providing a/mag wristwatches for the British pre'55 all to a man overcooked the depth of dial they were being asked for(to the same degree)...from thier own volition.

Still... thats by the by...the intresting part is the need/call to reduce the proportion of the dial....especially with the mod having plenty that would more than suffice in thier inventory. They would have made that move for a reason....and for once in horological world i cannot see it being simple economics.

10 AF/807 dials

seem to be of soft iron alike the Mk. 11 dials. I made no metallurgical analysis and I could examine only round about 10 of these watches physically. But all dials have that specific look of soft iron, the black anti-corrosion coating on the back and "behave" like soft iron if one makes some simple tests

Were the ten you studied all the full white version of this dial, variants with a white applied square on a black dial turning up must surely indicate a work in process given the size of the run. Would be intresting to understand the split (which came first/and which were they not happy with).

I can see it as simple economics ..

.. if an iron dial fits between the movement and the case a
provides a level of magnetic protection that meets the required specification why would any company spend time and resources to reduce the dial thickness to meet the lowest level of specification?

Cheers from the cellar

10 AF/807 dials variants

There are the two variants you described and at least I myself saw more with the white coating covering only parts of the dail (some kind of square extended to one side for the electric contact).

But I am not able to date them and to say whether this was some kind of development or simply that one craftsman did it that way and another one this way.

To me the full coating makes not much sense as the coating shall provide some gloom for the tiny dial. So why any coating at places invisible for the camera lens (except one area where the electric contact is established)?

Th. Koenig

I can see it as simple economics ..

Yes exactly Cellar....why would somebody set about making dials for a lot they already have dials for.

Thanks for info....nt

full depth in white seems to be a big no-no...nt

Coating...

I might be wrong but in my humble opinion it's much simpler to apply a coating to an entire surface instead of applying it only to the center of the dial. When the camera is placed over the dial, only showing the center part, the surplus of paint doesn't matter anymore.

Kind regards,

Clemens

Magnetic shielding was not the problem...

Thanks for this great information and nicely deep going discussions.

Reading thru the thread I think the magnetic shielding in this implementation was in NOT the major factor. The lightning Electric "Lightning" F.Mk.xx was (from a technical standpoint) a old style airplane, not carrying much electronics nor much magnetic sources as this was also not desired by the designers as this could have (most threatening) disordered the own navigation systems..

The aim of the c89 on board was to provide a time 'information' or a time 'delta'. The recording up to the second was good enough, IF the time would have been atomic, the cold war would not have been changed...

Much more troublesome is the fact that the watch was kept unpressurized and exposed to high g-forces and vibrations, plus the dramatic pressure and temperature changes. Contrary to the information in the article the temperature changes could have been much worse. In an airplane on ground on a tarmac in the sun temperatures up to 80C are not unlikely in an avionics compartment, and above the tropopause in the troposphere temps down to -70C or even lower are quite often seen especially in winter or northern latitudes.

So the quality of this very special IWC camera watch was that it resisted all these very bad factors and proved to be a very accurate and extremely reliable IWC... a fantastic movement, my C89 watches prove this every day...

Greetings from Schaffhausen
H.C.

I think we're getting warmer......

'Reading thru the thread I think the magnetic shielding in this implementation was in NOT the major factor'.

What the British wanted was 'White'....be hook or be crook.

There was a lot of electronics

around the watch. And there were the starters for the engines near by producing high voltage ignition. Adrian can post a pic of the recorder just to show how much electronic was located only inches away from the watch.

As well there was no problem with coldness, more with heat: The Lightning wasn't in 20,000 feet altitude with his engines off. And directly on one of the engines located it was quite warm.

Regards

Th. Koenig

The ultimate "pilot" watch.

Short range not a problem

Hi All;

Remember the name of the plane 'English Electric Lightning'; it was a British plane, made solely to defend British airspace and Britain is a VERY small island, fly 100km and you are over some other countries' airspace.

So, the idea behind the Lightning was that once the radar showed a Russian 'Bear' entering British airspace, the Lightnings would be scrambled & their phenomenal performance was all about ultra high speed vertical climb. The idea was that the plane could get very high & attack the 'Bears' before they hit the British mainland. Because the accepted method of bomber interception was from above, the Lightning had not only a phenomenal straight line performance, but also a tremendously high ceiling of operation. In fact, the ceiling of the Lightning is still classified; however the Lightning is the only manned plane ever to intercept a US U2 at operational height.

I have owned a couple of these IWC gun cameras in the past & will see if I can find a photograph of one.

Thanks for an excellent article.

Good Luck
James