Hi all- I'm sure this question has been asked here a million times, but I haven't found through the search engine a thread that seems specifically to address this issue so I thought I'd run it up the flagpole. For those among you who are pilots (although any thoughts and opinions are of interest) I'm curious to hear whether you regard a purpose built pilot's watch as a necessity in the cockpit, and if so what features you'd look for and/or what watch you'd actually use.
I just had a long phone conversation with a friend who's a longtime pilot (qualified to fly multi-engine aircraft, IFR, has dealt with in-flight emergencies such as loss of both generators during flight, etc. etc.) and what he basically said was that given the number of timers in a modern cockpit, with the number of backup systems available, the likelihood of a total instrumentation failure resulting in a real need for a watch was very small, in his opinion, and that even among pilots ownership of a pilot's watch was motivated more by the desirability of a watch as such, than by any real pragmatic necessity for a watch.
Opinions and thoughts? Very curious to hear everyone's views. I know many/most pilots wear a watch on a regular basis but I'm specifically interested to know to what degree any aviators here would regard one as a real operational necessity. I've run across an article archived on the web from 1918 that talks about an eight day cockpit clock as a standard cockpit instrument, so clearly, cockpit timers have been around for a while and have co-existed with aviator's watches, so the issue doesn't seem to be as simple as, presence of a cockpit timer=no need for a backup. Or is it? :-s
Thanks in advance,
Jack
I just had a long phone conversation with a friend who's a longtime pilot (qualified to fly multi-engine aircraft, IFR, has dealt with in-flight emergencies such as loss of both generators during flight, etc. etc.) and what he basically said was that given the number of timers in a modern cockpit, with the number of backup systems available, the likelihood of a total instrumentation failure resulting in a real need for a watch was very small, in his opinion, and that even among pilots ownership of a pilot's watch was motivated more by the desirability of a watch as such, than by any real pragmatic necessity for a watch.
Opinions and thoughts? Very curious to hear everyone's views. I know many/most pilots wear a watch on a regular basis but I'm specifically interested to know to what degree any aviators here would regard one as a real operational necessity. I've run across an article archived on the web from 1918 that talks about an eight day cockpit clock as a standard cockpit instrument, so clearly, cockpit timers have been around for a while and have co-existed with aviator's watches, so the issue doesn't seem to be as simple as, presence of a cockpit timer=no need for a backup. Or is it? :-s
Thanks in advance,
Jack