A few weeks back, Swatch Group held an event to unveil new watches for 2019. Amongst them, the Blancpain Air Command caught my eye. A bit of a background of the watch’s origin, back in the 1950s, the French Ministry of Defense wanted an accurate chronograph A chronograph complication is a feature in a watch that allows the wearer to measure elapsed time in addition to telling the time. It works by having a separate set of gears and levers, called the chronograph mechanism, which is activated by pressing a button or a pusher. The chronograph mechanism starts and stops the chronograph's second hand, which is usually located on the watch's dial, separate from the regular watch hands. The elapsed time is usually displayed on a sub-dial or a register on the watch's dial.
[Learn More] with black dial and luminous hour markers for ease to read. The movement must also contain a flyback A flyback function on a chronograph watch, allows the user to reset the chronograph back to zero and start timing again with a single button press (no need to first stop the watch).
[Learn More] function with running seconds hand.
A few years later, Blancpain developed the original AIr Command for the US Air Force with these specifications after it has won over the US Navy with the Fifty Fathoms dive watch.
Beautiful watch, price is a bit of a stretch for me. This is JLC Master Compressor territory price and design wise…