A couple months ago back in June Longines released something that came as a surprise to most of us in the industry, as well as enthusiasts who follow developments quite closely. Longines is known for creating very accurate reissue watches pulled from their massive catalogue of historical productions, just like their Heritage Central Power Reserve here, and their Classic Sector Dial. While these two previous heritage inspired models are excellent, they are indeed quite tame in design – cue the new Pilot Majetek Pioneer Edition that we have in-hand with us today that’s clearly bucking this trend.
Straight away, without detailed inspection, you can tell something is different with this watch. Is it the extravagant coin edged bezel, or perhaps the flat wide profile of the case? I can make quite a long list of design differentiators for this watch, that combined together produce not only something very unique in our day and age, but also a highly accurate and period correct re-introduction of a classic from the yesteryears. Longines had actually released something very similar to this in 2014, and they’ve had a stainless steel version of this watch in their modern catalogue for some time now – what makes this new release so intriguing is its Titanium construction.
Case Shape
The most attention grabbing aspect of this watch for me is the case design, I guess you can consider it a cushion case, but there’s more to it. From above it indeed does appear to have a generic cushion case appearance, but when viewing the watch from the side, or flipping it over entirely to inspect the caseback a more peculiar appearance is presented.
The sides of the watch showcase a very flat mid center to the case with very sharply angled lugs. The lugs are not curved as usual with most Longines Heritage watches, but they’re rather machine angled with a laser cut appearance. The back of the watch reveals an even more modern aspect as it’s entirely flat and rectangular in shape unlike the front of the watch which appears more rounded off. When off the wrist the watch takes on a fairly vintage and nostalgic style, but when placed on the wrist a more modern design influence is in play.
Due to the unusual case shape the watch fits slightly flat fitting and bulky on the wrist, an aspect that really took me by surprise as regular off-wrist images don’t convey the look accurately. The watch is truly very flat fitting with a boxy look, the lugs do seem to protrude more than usual as well giving off the illusion of overhang on my 6.5 inch wrist.
The look on wrist may not be one of a classic tailored fit, it certainly aces the comfort department mainly due to the lightweight properties of the Titanium case material. The watch is slightly large due to its shape and the on paper specs of the 43mm case size, but its exceedingly comfortable simply due to its weight. The case size simply comes down to proper aesthetic representation of the original, I say that simply because this watch is using the same L893 ETA movement housed in smaller watches from their Heritage line.
The Dial
The dial on the Pilot Majetek Pioneer Edition is very simple in layout and retains about 90% of the original look from the 1920s version that was supplied to the Czechoslovakian Air Force. The shape of the hands, some of the dial text, and the boldness of the arabic numerals has all been slightly tweaked, the remaining schematic layout appears to remain very similar. One aspect that was immediately noticeable to me was the modern Longines logo in the blocky capital text, it would have been nice if Longines reverted back to the old cursive Longines logo used in the 1920’s for this reissue.
Since the dial layout is so simple and unclutered it’s naturally very easy to read on quick glance as it should be for a pilot’s watch. The white on black contrasting helps with this, and the small seconds at 6’oclock simplifies the dial even further by avoiding any obtrusive large seconds hand that could have been used in its place. The actual dial finishing initially appeared to me as a high gloss, which could have been reflection from the crystal because after closer inspection under different light settings it certainly has a grainy finish which I’ve tried to capture in my images here.
While not entirely part of dial its worth mentioning that the bezel is indeed bidirectional rotating unlike the 2014 version of this watch, which makes this version just slightly more true when compared to the original vintage from the 1920’s. The rotation of the bezel is surprisingly smooth with a nice tactile tension. It’s nothing like a clicking dive bezel, but the quality is quite apparent when using it which is a nice touch from Longines.
Leave a Reply