We cracked the Film Compax. Here's the next unsolved mystery for the forum sleuths - a Cairelli Otto Giorni with a surround of multicolor chips, which are mounted so as to be easily removable, held in place with a little spring-loaded knuckle. Roessler (page 297) has this as a clock from an aircraft carrier (of which there were two in the Regia Marina in the time to which he dates the clock 1941-1950, neither ever finished), with the chips being used to denote presence or absence of airplanes. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me - why would the presence or absence of planes have to be marked against a clock? He also notes that these were found in bombers. Why? Presence or absence of bombs? So, let the games begin - who knows the purpose of the multicolored chips?
A guess: the colours denote certain types/models of aircrafts which are scheduled to land on the aircraft at different slots of the day. I assume aircrafts must be scheduled at different times, very much like booking airspaces and landing rights at an airport. Also, those are some beautiful hands and numerals.
I thought something like that too. It just seems a very cumbersome way to do it when, you know, the clock is right there. The chips seem eminently misplace-able (and of all of the examples of this clock that I have seen in the last decade, this is the only one that I have ever seen with a full complement of chips), so I am imagining some type of system in which they are placed somewhere else - a deck diagram perhaps, or something similar. I am waiting for the OF member who has some exposure to managing a flight deck to open this thread....
A sort of daily scheduler? Maybe in a ready room so the CAP crews know when they have to fly. Removable chips to re-schedule for crew rotation?
The chips are in coloured pairs. Each group of planes can stay in the air a certain time. So, one chip for take-off time, the second chip is then placed in the slot denoting last time they can return. Wouldn't want all planes returning at once.
Also used in bombers (maybe)? Could be a frequency timer to change frequency for comms (same principle as a radio room watch clock).
Standard watch on naval ships is 4 hours. 6 different colored chips so 24 hours. Saw this aboard the Marine taxis or more commonly known as Navy ships.
I think it has something to do with the Watch for bridge crews. Maybe each officer had a color that let everyone know his watch time
Probably true, a naval officer would need a colored chip to tell him what to do at certain times. Not that there is anything wrong with naval officers. Some of my best friends were naval officers.
Klingons and robots never need sleep. Kirk needed sleep because he was always banging nurse Chapel Need to post a customary watch picture to make this above board
The Italians stole a idea from the RAF but used at sea even the US Airforce in WW2 had a version in England. One thing concentrating mainly on military I seen a lot of stuff first time for this for the Italians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sector_clock Here is another Italian Navy clock in my collection not Zenith but a Lemania they were all ways odd.
I did consider the traditional sector clock, but the doubling up of the coloured chips made me re-think that theory. Nice Lemania BTW .
Maybe the Italians did it in 10 minute intervals instead of 5 minutes intervals. Here is the US WW2 version. The color plates can be removed from the photo's so maybe through the years they were moved around so now in the wrong position and not in 5 minutes intervals. https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/...0042/lot-ede798c1-f3fd-4f35-9845-a48700abef77 These Seth Thomas sector clocks are more rare than the RAF ones but that Italian one got them both beat in rarity.
