Back at the beginning of May, a new member showed up with a flightmaster he was looking to sell, and needed a little advise on.

Having pulled together a few options, shared them with him, and suggested he put it on eBay, I started to think that this might be a fun (if expensive!) project to take on myself.

We did a deal, both had kittens as it disappeared into UK customs for 10 days, and now he has a chunk of cash, and I have a broken flightmaster.



My plan is to leave the case alone, full service on the movement, new crowns, pushers, inner bezel, dial, and hands.

Having three good, original, flightmasters in the safe, I thought it would be fun to build a tool watch that could still be used for its intended purpose, and that can be safely used in a 707's cockpit!

My bank manager is not going to thank me, but moneys much more fun in watches than in the bank.

 

I have a T dial and maybe even some other parts, Chris

 

That's a really cool project! I would keep the dial like this, or have it relume by James Hyman just to give a bad a$$ look with new crystal and hands...

 

My beater says hi:

Looking forward to see how you progress, new, nos or current parts to be used, does not matter, the Flighty is a wonderful watch.

 

Ohhh tempting, but I think I’m going to go full Superluminova for now Alexis!

 

Really ?

The eternal shining is very disturbing, be careful

 

If you are going to reset to new the dial, hands, bezel, crown and pushers is there any reason not to go the whole hog and do the case as well? You didn't mention the plan for the crystal. These are mineral glass I think, so could be polished up rather than replaced I suppose.

A cool project, which reminds me there are still two gapping holes in my collection: Memomatic and Flightmaster (one day an ST 145.013 Yellow hands no dots maybe).

 

Like the idea of just swapping what needs swapping... will get a new crystal.

 

Did you ever do a set of side-by-side photos for your three? Despite many fantastic images in the Flightmaster Only book, there are surprisingly few that show all three main models side-by-side.

 

I didn’t! Will try this weekend.

 

Ya. Got three that are well aged... like the idea of one as a super usable tool.

 

Dial is destroyed - heavy water damage. Plan is to treat it as a tool, and fix what needs fixing, so it can do the job it was intended for.

 

Nice one Chris, I like the idea of lighting it up!

 

I should have been more specific; I was thinking more about a side view comparison of all three simultaneously (pusher side and twin crown side). There are plenty of single watch side views but not all three together. The crystals are subtly different as well as their installation in the cases. The .013 case seems thinner than the others but overall height is greater....I think. Maybe it’s just an optical illusion.

The trigger was seeing one live at the Speedy Tuesday event in Frankfurt last Tuesday and thinking that it lay much flatter on the wrist than all the online photos I have seen so far. In photos they all look enormous (in height). Unfortunately I didn’t make a mental note if it was a .013, .026 or .036 version.

 

That flightmaster is grungy, but cool. Looking forward to the after pictures. I see it was bought from a military exchange, did you buy from the original owner?

 

Super grungy!

Going to be a bit of a long turn around on this, as the service/parts bill is more than I can handle in the immediate future.

I believe the sellers father bought it from the A/AF Exchange, but don’t have a whole lot of information.

 

I checked and available are : all vintage hands (plus you choose orange or yellow) and the T dial.

Sure the old parts are cheaper. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know

 

I’ll drop you a DM

I still like the idea of it glowing like the blazes though!

 

Keep it as it is! Just a proper service and good to go. That dial gives it nice character.