Page 64 - SHARP September 2022

Z IS FOR ZULU
THE NEW
LONGINES SPIRIT ZULU TIME GMT IS AN HOMAGE TO THE GOLDEN AGE OF AVIATION
By Jeremy Freed
I N OCTOBER 1931, CLYDE PANGBORN AND HUGH HERNDON,
Jr., two American aviators, completed the world’s first non-stop trans-Pacific flight from Japan to the United States. Covering 5,500 miles in just over 41 hours, it was the longest flight ever made over water and a major milestone in the history of aviation. Following the epic journey, Herndon wrote a letter to thank the company that made the most important instruments the pair carried: their Longines watches. “Clyde Pangborn and myself carried Longines timepieces, which performed faultlessly,” he wrote, adding that while the frigid arctic weather they encountered froze the water in their canteens, their Longines watches continued to keep perfect time. “As you know,” he wrote, “correct time is essential to good navigation.”
Longines, a Swiss luxury watchmaker with 190 years of heri- tage, knows this better than most. Indeed, it was one of the leading producers of pilots’ instruments in the 1920s and 1930s — the golden age of early aviation. As a tribute to that important era in the company’s history — and the many pioneering aviators it equipped for their flights — the new Longines Spirit Zulu Time is a classic GMT watch that combines the best of old and new.
Featuring a rotating bezel and GMT hand indicating a second time zone, the 2022 Spirit Zulu Time is an homage to the original Longines Zulu Time watch, a 1925 release and the first watch to display a second time zone. Its name derives from the letter Z (“Zulu” in the NATO alphabet), which is aviation shorthand for “zero time,” another word for Greenwich Mean Time, the standard time used by pilots when crossing multiple time zones. While the original was square-cased and hand-wound, the new Longines Spirit Zulu Time takes a more contemporary approach, with a modern 42 mm steel case, a ceramic bezel insert, a choice of sun-brushed blue or black dials, and a selection of interchangeable stainless steel and leather straps. Its movement, meanwhile, boasts a power reserve of 72 hours and is chronometer-certified by the COSC — the official Swiss governing body for accuracy.
While most people who buy the new Spirit Zulu Time won’t use it for aviation (as accurate as its chronometer movement is, in the days of GPS there are more reliable ways to navigate the skies), the new GMT is still a valuable tool for frequent flyers. When you touch down in a foreign time zone, simply reset the watch to local time and use the GMT hand and 24-hour bezel to indicate home time, allowing you to read both at a glance (jet lag notwithstanding). Along the way, if you find yourself facing down a cancelled flight or a long wait at customs, you can spare a thought for Pangborn and Herndon, freezing in their tiny cockpit above the Pacific, relying on nothing more than their bravery and their watches to steer them safely home. ($3,600)
WATCH
64 SEPTEMBER 2022
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