A Conversation With Astronaut Wally Schirra (by Chuck Maddox)

Always interesting and great to see that Wally Schirra wasn't afraid to use his personal Speedmaster CK2998-4 in SAR water egress training:
NASA photos of water egress training were taken in May & August 1962
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Even more interesting to see is this photo which shows Walter Wally Schirra still wearing his personal Speedmaster CK2998-4 during back-up training as Command Pilot for the Gemini III mission in February & March 1965...
Remember official Omega Speedmaster chronographs had just been issued but it looks like NASA only had 4 chronographs and from March 1965 photos I assume these were used by other astronauts (Grissom, Young (2), and Stafford)...
Also note that Wally's Speedmaster chronograph had lost its bezel by then ~ 3 years in use:
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Edit: checked my actual paper photo and this Schirra photo was taken February 26, 1965

Checking out those 1962 photos, it looks like Wally Schirra tried the watch out on both left and right forearm, as the Mercury astronauts could wear mirrors on their wrist to facilitate work and bounce light onto the cockpit instruments during flight...
In May 1962 Wally Schirra wore his personal Speedmaster CK2998-4 while training as a backup for Scott Carpenter's MA-7 mission... these are the earliest NASA photos showing Schirra wearing his Speedmaster chronograph
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Walter Schirra poses with his personal Omega Speedmaster CK2998-4 on his right forearm:

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May 13, 1962 Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra training as backup-pilot for the Aurora 7 mission... CK2998-4 on his left wrist

While I'm on a #SpeedyTuesday high, I would like to ask the confirmation if the personal CK-2998 Speedmaster chronographs of NASA astronauts Slayton, Schirra and Cooper were indeed CK-2998-4 versions

NASA photos show that all three astronauts already had a CK2998 Speedmaster in May 1962 ... I always assumed these were CK2998-4 but could just as well be a CK2998-5 (production year 1962) available in Europe from February 1962 onwards... as the astronauts bought their watches in March or April 1962 it's a better chance these were CK2998-4 as the CK2998-5 might have taken a bit longer to get from Switzerland all the way to the USA?

MoonwatchUniverse tribute to the first Omega in space... Walter Schirra during his 9 hours 13 minutes MA-8 "Sigma-7" mission in October 1962

That was a great interview...thanks for sharing/immortalizing...lucky the CD (I assume it was one of those burnt ones) did not start going bad yet...that would have been a shame.

Great interview.

Lucky that Robert-Jan had still a CD reader, a technical thing from the past. 👍

Just posting this here for future reference #AskOmega
Neither of the early Mercury 7 astronauts' Omega Speedmaster CK2998 have a lollipop chronograph hand.
Remember my question which was the exact version of their personal CK2998... always thought it was CK2998-4
Photos: NASA
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