Okay, I'm like, two weeks late reading this thread but I'll put my two
cents in anyway. Maybe I should log in here more often.

I have a Timex Adventure Tech watch; all digital, $100US SRP.
Altimeter, two time zones, barometer (for what it's worth),
chronometer, timer, and alarm. I got it on sale two years ago on
Amazon for $60US. Checked today and Amazon is currently selling'em for
86 bucks.

I originally bought it for backcountry skiing and hiking and it works
very well, but it also is, IMHO, a good watch for flying. More
intuitive than many digital watches as far as accessing the various
functions.

Evil downside: the battery died right after I got the watch from
Amazon, but I replaced the battery and it's been working flawlessly
for almost two years now. Not so evil upside: the wrist band is hugely
adjustable and I can wear it on the outside of my fleece jacket while
skiing, but thanks to the way it adjusts it works well on my bare
naked wrist too. I'm strictly a VFR pilot and don't really use all the
functions of the watch but I believe you IFR guys might find it handy
too.

An aside: when I was a navigator flying in a gunship (AC119K) in 1972
I picked up an Omega Flightmaster watch in downtown Udorn (IIRC) for
something like $45US. Great watch, still have it. Has a second hand
that can be set (Zulu for me then) and very easy to hack to WWV, or
whatever. Later when I was a navigator in KC135's I found it perfect
for celestial navigation. Of course, that doesn't really apply to the
real world today, does it?

I still have the Flightmaster and it still works, but man, it's a
boatload on your wrist. Weighs a ton, and I now officially consider it
to be a Fashion Accessory. But, it does the trick when I want to
impress my girlfriend (also my wife; we've been married for 35 years)

Again, just my two centavos.

--Walt Weaver
Bozeman, Montana

On Nov 14, 9:51 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/37qd8w

For those who may be in the market for a decent pilot watch, this
Timex Expedition is the best one I could find with all the features I
wanted, for a reasonable ($54) price.

It's got dual (actually triple) time with Zulu time accessible at the
push of a button, countdown and -up timers, several reminder alarms, a
built-in digital compass (that actually seems to work), and it's all
easily readable with my old(er) eyes.

The buttons are big, and the menu system is more intuitive than my
previous watch, which was also a Timex Expedition (but a different
model/version). It's pure digital, rather than analog/digital like I
wanted, but I discovered that if I wanted Zulu time easily accessible
without screwing up the date, pure digital was the only option.

I looked at every pilot's watch out there, up to and including the
Citizen, Torgoen, and all the other "hot shot pilot" watches, and IMHO
they all suck. What blew me away was how you could easily spend as
much as $5K on a watch that was absollutely not usable for telling
time! To me, that's just an IQ test waiting to be failed...

For $54, this relatively simple watch has every feature (well, except
for an altimeter) that a pilot could want, a comfortable band, and it
even looks decent. Best of all, I can buy roughly 100 of these watches
for the cost of a single "real" pilot's watch!

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"