Discussion
What's the crack with IWC's 8 day movement?
I can see the point of a power reserve on a manual wind watch - a very useful complication! But this IWC movement is an automatic, no? So having an 8 day power reserve solely gives you the ability to put your watch down for a week and then wear it again without having to set the time. Cool, but not core functionality I'd pay £4000 over their tuned-ETA movement for!!!
(I think that the Ingy is available with either the IWC in-house 8-day or the tuned ETA, and there's £4k difference between the two watches... whereas I'm not sure whether the Big Pilot is available with any of IWC's other movements (i.e. the 'based on ETA' ones as per the movement in my Aquatimer))
Similarly, that huge onion crown is a boon for a manual wind (esp. given the original requirement - a Pilot's watch - would have the kitted-out flieger chap wearing leather gloves and needing to wind the watch) but not anywhere near so important for an automatic.
So part of me is thinking this watch *ought* to be a manual wind. Parts of the design fundamentally were purely *for* ease of manual wind - whereas on an automatic watch, these design elements become purely for styling and not for functionality any more...
Not trying to stir up controversy or start an argument, it's a beautiful watch and a good choice
But I'm not sure whether I'd prefer the new watch, or an older Big Pilot... And does anyone agree with me that it should be 'automatik' ? 
I can see the point of a power reserve on a manual wind watch - a very useful complication! But this IWC movement is an automatic, no? So having an 8 day power reserve solely gives you the ability to put your watch down for a week and then wear it again without having to set the time. Cool, but not core functionality I'd pay £4000 over their tuned-ETA movement for!!!
(I think that the Ingy is available with either the IWC in-house 8-day or the tuned ETA, and there's £4k difference between the two watches... whereas I'm not sure whether the Big Pilot is available with any of IWC's other movements (i.e. the 'based on ETA' ones as per the movement in my Aquatimer))
Similarly, that huge onion crown is a boon for a manual wind (esp. given the original requirement - a Pilot's watch - would have the kitted-out flieger chap wearing leather gloves and needing to wind the watch) but not anywhere near so important for an automatic.
So part of me is thinking this watch *ought* to be a manual wind. Parts of the design fundamentally were purely *for* ease of manual wind - whereas on an automatic watch, these design elements become purely for styling and not for functionality any more...
Not trying to stir up controversy or start an argument, it's a beautiful watch and a good choice
But I'm not sure whether I'd prefer the new watch, or an older Big Pilot... And does anyone agree with me that it should be 'automatik' ? 
Gassing Station | Watches | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff








