The new Speedy brings both military provenance and a sprinkling of a vintage piece beloved among Omega collectors. Diehard Omega nuts will be reminded of the old Flightmaster watches from the 1970s. The new Speedmaster Pilot is not an exact match for the manually-wound Flightmaster with its profusion of crowns, pushers, hands, and wild colors, but some of those hues are indeed present in this latest release. Atop a brushed 40.85mm stainless steel case with straight lugs—like those found on the original 1957 Speedmaster—is a matte aluminum bezel with a tachymeter scale in white and orange and a classic “Dot Over Ninety” indication.
The dial on this watch is a true showstopper. It’s comprised of a grained, matte-black texture that’s interrupted only by two chronograph subdials. A combination 60-minute and 12-hour totalizer at 3 o’clock features orange and grey hands and a cockpit-inspired “burn-rate” indicator while a running-seconds indicator at 9 o’clock features an artificial horizon background in light blue and black with a bright yellow hand.
The pops of color don’t end there, however: The central chronograph seconds hand has a Flightmaster-esque, plane-shaped orange tip, while the chunky blocks of Super-LumiNova likewise have orange tips. Another eye-pleasing feature is that the indices as well as the watch’s thick sword hands glow green in low light, lighting up the watch dial like a dashboard instrument. A date indicator with a black background and white typography is present at 6 o’clock, and the whole shebang is powered by the automatic Omega Calibre 9900 movement with 60 hours of power reserve. The presence of an automatic movement makes for a case thickness of 14.54 mm, so don’t expect the Speedmaster Pilot to slip sveltly under a cuff, not a problem if you’re wearing it over a flight suit as intended.
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