On many occasions I’ve mentioned that I pretty much only feel comfortable wearing a quartz movement based watch when that movement offers functionality you can’t find in a mechanical watch. Analog/digital watches such as this are a prime example. Offering the grace of analog time telling, the dials are enhanced with digital LCD screens that offer lots more functionality – as only an electronic watch can offer.
New from Hamilton is this Khaki Flight Timer. Done in collaboration with the Air Zermatt helicopter rescue team in Switzerland, this is their new high-function pilot watch with a Swiss ETA quartz movement. You can see the Air Zermatt logo engraved on the caseback. Functionally this watch should do a lot even though I don’t have a full spec sheet. The dial is broken up into a few negative LCD screen sections and the case has a crown along with three pushers. You can still read the time easily enough, and I like the large applied metal minute/hour markers. You’ll of course see that the dial is a available in a silver or anthracite tone. Skeletonized hands make it possible to see the screens below them without too much interference.
So what does the watch do? According to Hamilton one of the price features is log data for recording details of up to 20 flights and a total of 99 landings. I assume the means take off and landing times as well as total flight duration times. The movement also likely offers a stopwatch, timers, calendar, alarms, multiple time zones, and world time information. I also like that it has a rotating timing bezel on the case.
The steel case is 40mm wide, making it a medium-sized watches. The case is water resistant to 100 meters and has a sapphire crystal. The overall design helps bridge the gadget and sport watch look together pretty well. This is a function-oriented watch and I like that Hamilton is still keen on making a lot of these pieces. Not having played with the piece myself yet I can’t comment on all the functions or its easy of use.
Hamilton will offer the Khaki Flight Timer with at least two dial options and on a rubber or leather strap. There is also thankfully a metal bracelet option. Prices for the leather/rubber strap models is $1,445 and for just a bit more you can get the metal bracelet model for $1,495.