Best pilot watches

Hamilton fits the H-40 here with a Nivachron balance spring and an 80-hour reserve, which means it survives a weekend off the wrist and shrugs off the magnetic fields that used to send affordable mechanicals to a watchmaker. Sapphire and 100m are the specifications the rest of this category keeps skipping.

42mm across and 11.85mm thick makes it a large watch that wears flat, on a standard 20mm strap. Hamilton publishes a European service price list — no US equivalent — so the running cost is knowable in outline rather than in full.

Hamilton fits the same Nivachron hairspring here as on the Khaki Field line, and the H-40 runs 80 hours. Sapphire and 100m on a watch this legible is the pilot-watch specification sheet most of the category never manages.

This is the most capable object on this page by a distance: a slide-rule bezel, chronograph, perpetual calendar, dual time and radio synchronization, running on light behind an anti-reflective sapphire crystal and rated to 200m. Citizen backs it with five years, longer than anyone else here.

The catch is structural and we score it that way. A U680 is a module: when it fails outside the parts window, the watch is finished no matter how good the case still is. At 45mm it is also the largest watch on this site — check that against your wrist before anything else.

It sets itself by radio, runs on light and is rated to 200m behind sapphire — and it is a module, not a movement. When the module stops being made, the watch is finished, however good the case still is.

Laco was one of the five firms that supplied observation watches to the German air ministry in the 1940s, and the Augsburg is the dial that came from. At 39mm with a 46.5mm lug-to-lug it is a modern wearable size rather than the 55mm original, with sapphire on both sides.

The movement is a Laco 2S built on the Miyota 82S0 with hacking seconds — a caliber any independent can obtain parts for. Two things are missing: Laco states no warranty term on the product page, and 5 ATM is the whole water story. This is a dry-land watch, and we score both facts.

Sapphire front and back, 46.5mm lug-to-lug and a Miyota base any independent can service. Laco states no warranty term on the product page and 5 ATM is the weak line — this is a dry-land watch.

The Nighthawk does the two things a travel-minded pilot watch has to do — a second time zone and a slide rule — with no winding, no battery changes and a 200m rating, which is far beyond what the style normally offers. Citizen's five years is the longest warranty on this site.

The crystal is the compromise: mineral, on a 42mm dial, which is a large area of glass to keep unmarked. Citizen also does not publish a lug width for this reference, so check it before you buy a strap for it.

200m, five years of cover and a second time zone from a watch you never wind, service or open. The mineral crystal is the cost, and on a 42mm slab of glass it is a cost you will eventually see.