A Middle Aged Father/IT
Professional/Pilot Reviews
the Breitling B-1 Professional
by
Doug Reeves (www.VansAirForce.net)Dec 2007 Update:
Review of the Breitling
Emergency
I'm into a very small subset of aviation style watches.
Let me refocus a bit - I'm not into the Citizen Wingman Blue Angels model
or the Chase-Durer marketed-to-millions lines, but rather watches worn by folks
with their pink hides in the seat during history-making events. Examples: What was
on Pete Knight's wrist when he flew the X-15 serial #2 on the fastest flight of the
program (mach 6.72) on Oct 3, 1967? A 1967 Rolex GMT Master (not the
flashier style sold today). What was Buzz Aldrin wearing
on his right wrist (pic) when he
walked on the moon? A NASA-issued 1968 Omega Speedmaster Professional (N.Armstrong left his in
the Lunar Module to act as a replacement timer for a faulty panel-mounted mission clock). What was on Ed White's
wrist when he took the first American space walk?
This actual Omega Speedmaster
Professional.
Ironically, in their day these were affordable
mechanical watches. Mechanical watches that if properly maintained, can
quite literally last a lifetime. Internally they are works of art.
Let's be realistic, though. A $20 quartz Timex from Target keeps better
time than the watches above, but it doesn't fulfill my mission requirement very
well as a middle-aged I.T. professional with a family and a plane that is flown
on the weekends. Neither does the Rolex or Omega for that matter (but they
are watches, at least, with a grandiose history).
The Breitling B-1 Professional.
Doug Reeves photos. |
Watch vs. Tool Watch vs. Wrist Instrument
What people need from a watch varies greatly. A $5 watch tells time,
and for the person that just needs that your search is over. A 'tool'
watch, like one designed for diving, is engineered and used differently. If you
*actually* dive you can benefit from a watch that can operate and be easily seen
while 50' under the surface. If you're wearing a $2000 dive watch in the office
and you're not dive certified, well, there you go.
What I call a 'wrist instrument' is a
different animal. It is a watch, but it also assists in the dozens of
different timing, tracking, reminding and calculating duties required of today's
parent/business professional who flies when he can.
My Specific Requirements (in order of importance):
- Easy to read analog and digital displays.
In the car, office, plane and when waking up during the middle of the
night.
- An alarm that is EASY to set and LOUD
enough to wake me (even in the cold months
when the watch may be under a quilt or two). It needs to be loud enough to
hear in the data center at work.
- Backlight bright enough to get me to the
restroom at 2am without walking into a wall. Not too bright.
- Minimal number of buttons (and they need
to be BIG)
- Quick to set countdown w/alarm (cooking
timer / kids curfew / etc). I don't want to have to stay near the
kitchen to hear the oven timer.
- EASY to read Stopwatch (for timing how
long it takes your kid to run to the fence, for timing flying events and for
timing how long your coworker can spin a notebook on their thumb during a
status meeting.) Must be easily read in the cockpit while in
turbulence. Must have second sweep hand.
- GMT mode (for quickly interpreting age of ATIS
reports and informing ATC of your time off when on a flight plan)
- Timer bezel (for giving your kid
15 more minutes to bedtime, for the coworker you told you would call in 45
minutes, etc.)
- 2nd time zone with alarm (coworker in Japan for next
7 days on business - is it OK to call right now?)
- Slide rule (explained below - you can use
it several times a day)
- Crazy Insane Accuracy.
With the help of Jamie Hayes of Feldmar Watch and Clock Center
(jamie 'at' feldmarwatch.com), I was able to review the Breitling B-1
Professional - a watch I now consider to be one of the finest 'wrist
instruments' for my specific circumstances. It's pricey, and
there's the rub of course. But so is the plane...
OK, here's a breakdown of some 'piloty' watches.
I've never held an Omega X-33, Breitling Navitimer or IWC 3706, yet have
included them here for comparative data points only. I may have a feature
on one of these three wrong. Apologies in advance.
Comments on the watches above:
- Casio G-Shock
Not an analog watch and dang near indestructible. The 'from the set of
Star Wars' look is a bit of a bummer, still, it's the watch I wear swimming,
mowing the lawn, washing the cars and changing the oil in the plane.
- The Timex Expedition
Buttons are SMALL and hard to remember which does which function. The
onion skin instruction sheet is the size of a bed sheet and in (11)
languages I don't need. The digital display
requires an electron microscope to read and the alarm can't be heard under a
blanket, but the Indigo backlight function works incredibly well as a
'middle of the night' light. $40 on the web. It will probably
last forever.
- The Breitling Navitimer
A watch, stopwatch and slide rule. The
stopwatch is somewhat difficult to interpret and would be hard to use in
a bumpy cockpit. The slide rule (when used on land) is more than
adequate. Very attractive watch with an impressive lineage.
- The 'Chuck Yeager' Rolex GMT II
Back when Pan Am first approached Rolex with the need for tracking a 2nd
time zone (the start of the jet age allowed crossing multiple times zones
quickly), the outer rotating 24hr bezel made this the perfect 'tool watch'
for airline crews. Today owning a NEW one doesn't convey that message
- and is, in my opinion, marketing gone mad. The older models from the
60s and 70s are way cool and worthy of your attention and care.
- Breitling Emergency
No backlight. No sweep second hand.
Rotating compass bezel. Emergency locator beacon.
Peace of mind for pilots - a 2nd ELT is NOT a bad idea.
- Omega Speedy Professional 'Moonwatch'
Killer dress watch with an NASA past. Only one in a thousand
people will know its history. It's just a watch and a semi-hard-to-interpret
stopwatch.
Secretly you will be proud of owning it.
- Omega X-33 'Mars watch'
Supposed to be the Moonwatch's quartz replacement.
No slide rule. Not really that attractive. Current watch issued
to U.S. astronauts - you'll see in on wrists in all those
space station and shuttle images. Understand the
backlighting and alarm level are impressive.
- Breitling B-1 Professional
I'm pretty impressed with everything - except the price of course. I'll discuss
some of the pros and cons below in greater detail.
Things to get used to regarding the B-1:
- Bezel rotation not 1 to 1
As you spin the bezel around you'll see that the outer scale rotates faster
(it is geared). There is really no 'top dead center' location
for the slide rule - just leave it where you had it last.
- Cycling between functions (by rotating the crown)
You spin the crown either direction to cycle between the various functions: date/chrono/alarm/UTC/alarm#2/etc.
One surprisingly nice discovery is you can spin from beneath or above with
ease. You
use this turning crown to increase/decrease values when setting alarms,
countdowns, etc. Different yet intuitive. Means fewer buttons on
watch.
The Slide Rule
You might think the slide rule is for flying. It
is not (sorry Mr. Travolta <g>). All the time enroute and fuel burn calculations are taken care of by your GPS and fuel
monitor these days, but I *guess* in a pinch you could use it as a backup.
I usually fly with other friends with their planes in close proximity - I'm sure
their GPS will work if my stops. Below is what you'll really use the slide
rule for (and you'll use it more than you think - all on land):
- Sales tax. Note in the picture below
that the red '10' index on the inner scale is between 80 and 85 - which you
could also call 8.25% (the Texas sales tax rate). Pretend the inner
red '10' represents a dollar. Looking across from it shows that your tax
would be 8.25 cents. Pretend the red '10' is $100 - tax is $8.25. Now look
over to the left where 80 is on the inner scale - above it is 66, so the tax
on something costing $80 is $6.60. If it cost $8,000 the tax would be
$660. Tax on $85 is $7. $90 is ~$7.40. Get it?
Pretty easy, huh? All done without moving the bezel.
While we're here let's look at fractions. Looking at the same picture
find 70 on the outer scale and see how it is over 85. So, looking at
the inner red '10' index tells us that 70 divided by 85 approximately equals
.825. 75/92ths is the same. So is 65/79ths.
- Gas mileage on that last tank. Miles
driven on outer scale / gallons filled up on inner scale - read average mpg on inner red '10' index.
- Group work lunch ($165 w/tax and tip) split between 12 people
- Calculating the rough cost of having new
countertops installed (while you're waiting on the sideline during son's
soccer practice (~27sq.ft times $45/ft installation)).
- What's the cost per roll for the
super-multi-pack of toilet paper vs. the six-pack of paper?
Quick, what's 17.2 times 12?
Note in the two pics above the 'gear'
bezel/outer ring relationship. Find the large dot at zero on the bezel
in both pictures and you'll see the outer slide rule scale shows different
values. It's an interesting feeling as you spin it, almost like using
the fine focus on a microscope - you feel 'other' stuff going on through
your fingertips.
Aviation Calculations
(backup for when your GPS
fails - very hard to use in the air)
- Nautical to Statute
See in the image below that '17' is on the red arrow above 'Naut' and
'19.6' is above the red arrow above the 'A' in 'Stat'. In
otherwords, 170 nauts is 196 mph (195.5 actually, but it's close
enough when you're in a gaggle of aviators and half have airspeed gauges
in mph and the rest in kts). You might be actually able to read
this in the plane if the air was smooth.
- Ground Speed
- Miles Per Minute
- Fuel Consumption
- Rate of Climb/Descent
- Distance of Climb/Descent
Pros:
- Large digital display that is EASY to read in cockpit
or car at a glance. Most times a glance is all you can safely get.
You don't have to look at mini 'sub dials' like on other pilot watches.
Note here the chrono feature goes over 24 hrs (the two 00 in the upper
window). Those are for number of days - up to 99.
- Countdown Timer Bezel. See in the
image below how the bezel has been spun around to show a 30 minute countdown
(30 on the minute hand). Notice how, as the minute hand sweeps around
you have a continuous status of time remaining. This is perfect for
day to day operations with different time lengths that occur often. In
my case, I spend time in a data center monitoring processes that take 6
minutes, 8 minutes and 12 minutes to run. I can start a process and
swing the time wanted to the current minute hand position. I don't
have to continually set a timer for the different length times and can go
about other things.
- Loud Alarm that is EASY to set, enable and disable. It is loud enough
that if you sleep with it under the covers you will still hear it (this isn't
the case with most other wrist alarms I've used).
- 'Snooze'. I set the 'TM' countdown
timer to 15 minutes for a little more sleep in the morning.
- Digital and analog clocks are synced.
The inexpensive Timex Expedition is really two clocks - the digital and the analog.
You set them independently. The B-1 is set in the digital window and
the analog hands follow along. Nice.
- You can pull out the crown from ABOVE w/your thumbnail (pic below).
There is just enough room to so you don't have to take off the watch to pull out
the crown.
- Backlight that doesn't blind you when your
eyes are already dark adapted. You activate it by pressing the crown in.
It illuminates for 6 seconds, and if you begin spinning the crown to go to
another function it stays lit until you are done.
- Accuracy. The B-1 movement is what
is referred to as 'SuperQuartz Thermocompensated'. It uses a thermally compensated circuit
that gives you accuracy on the order of +/- 15 seconds per YEAR. One
second a month ain't too shabby. The
digital watches floating around that sync up to the atomic clock frequency
are pretty impressive also, but I've yet to see one with all the features I want
in a layout that I'd be happy with.
Cons:
- Slide rule not usable in any moving vehicle
you are in command of (but that's
not where I use it). As a passenger maybe...
- Expense. Expect to pay over 2K.
What did you pay for that glass panel in your plane, $40K? Maybe this
watch isn't such a crazy idea when you consider you'll spend more time with it
than your airplane and will probably
keep it longer <g>. Still, that's a lot of money.
The 'who cares?' Section:
- Bracelet. I reviewed the watch with the inexpensive diver band.
For me, instead of spending hundreds extra on a fancy bracelet
you can buy a LIFETIME supply of beautiful bands and a quick-change tool from
RV-7A owner Walt Aronow at www.LoneStarWatches.com.
Change bands when the mood hits - it takes 60 seconds. Put on the one
that matches your shirt.
with tan/cloth band
- The manual says the backlight is night vision goggle compatible. Backlight is backlight
if you ask me. I
don't fly many night ops wearing NVGs in my RV <g>. Like I've said
above....marketing gone mad <g>.
This is a high quality wrist instrument. I'm
not even sure I'd call it a 'pilot' watch. And........I like it.
Special thanks to Jamie Hayes of Feldmar Watch and Clock Center
(jamie 'at' feldmarwatch.com) for making it possible to review this watch (www.FeldmarWatch.com
(310)274-8016). If you ever decide to look into buying one
give Jamie a call for a quote.
Best,
Doug Reeves
www.VansAirForce.net
Builder/Pilot of Van's Aircraft RV-6 N617AR 'Flash'
Ed Hicks photo.
contact the author at
www.DeltaRomeo.com
3/2/06 Update:
A few days ago I took some pictures of the review watch while flying my plane at
4,500'. You can see in the first picture below (12min 43sec into the
flight) that even if you only have time to glance down for an instant,
determining the time since starting the stopwatch is a snap (especially in
direct sunlight).
Here you can see that I'm using the countdown bezel to time when it's time to
switch fuel tanks. You can see that I have 28 minutes left on the outer
bezel and that the engine has been running for 53min 08sec. You can also
see that (using the slide rule) that 40.5 divided by 90 equals .450 and that I
have way, way too much hair on my arm.
9/29/06 Update:
- Accuracy - this thing hasn't
lost/gained a second in five months. Simply amazing.
- Stopwatch Launch Speed - I usually
keep the LCD on the 'Date' page. Since the 'Stopwatch' function is the
next page, requiring a small turn of the crown to reach, a quick flick with
the finger spins it just enough to get there. Then, push the upper
button to start the clock. Not as fast as having a dedicated stopwatch
like on the Omega Speedy Pro, but pretty close.
- 'TM' page (countdown timer page) -
I use it mainly for three things: 1. setting it at 1-hr on the weekend for
the occasional nap, 2. setting it for 15 minutes M-F to act as a snooze in
the morning, and 3. setting it for 4hrs to remind me when to give the kid
the next dose of cough medicine. Trivia: you can set the timer out to
99days 23hr 59min 59.99sec.
- Poo - I find I use the stopwatch (CHR
page)
mostly these days for timing how long it has been since the dog went out
last. Not kidding.
- Bezel - This is engineering art and
I think it's one of the watch's strongest features. I use it all the
time because it is so effortless to use (unlike any other watch I've ever
owned with a rotating bezel). It is machined to act as a countdown
timer, but I use it often for counting up (roughly). Example:
When the kid goes over to a friend's house I align the luminous dot on the
bezel with the hour hand, giving me a semi-precise time of her leaving.
If my wife is teaching yoga in the evening and will be back at 9pm I often
swing the dot over to the 9-o'clock position to remind me later, when I will
have forgotten (different arrival times throughout the week). I use
this bezel so much more than I thought I ever would. Swinging it feels
like spinning a focus knob on a precision microscope, and unlike others it
spins clockwise and counter-clockwise.
- Minor Gripe - The strap lugs are
drilled too close to the body of the watch. I most often wear a nylon
strap with watches and occasionally change them out to another color when
the mood hits. You can't just slide a new strap through in 5 seconds
on this watch like you can on most others. Since you have to remove
the lugs it takes about 3 minutes. Not a lot, but still...
- On The Chopping Block? - I've been
told Breitling will stop offering the B-1.
Sad. I thought it was a good one.
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