Zenith Relaunches the Pilot with Two New Aviation Themed Watches

It’s the year of the Pilot for Zenith. After shoring up their Chronomaster collection and injecting new life into the Defy over the last few years, Zenith has returned to the Pilot collection and given it a complete revamp. The Pilot is a historic line for Zenith, having trademarked the word “Pilote” all the way back in 1888 (and “Pilot” in 1904). In the early days of the company, the brand focused largely on the manufacture of flight instruments and watches for pilots. They of course weren’t the only brand to cut their manufacturing teeth on the burgeoning need for these types of devices, but were (and still are) the only brand to trademark the word “Pilot,” which allows them the opportunity to use it on the dial in a way other brand’s can’t. The new collection is a stab at bringing something very old in Zenith’s history and making it new in a very explicit way. In other words, these aren’t vintage inspired pilot’s watches, but something far more contemporary.

There are two new watches making their debut this week, each in two different materials, for a total of four new Pilots flying their way into boutiques soon enough. The Pilot Automatic is a three hander running on the El Primero 3620, the same chrono-less EP movement found in the Defy Skyline collection. We get a date at 6:00, right below a horizontal line that is meant to recall indicators on a pilot’s instrument panel to refer them back to the horizon line. The Arabic numerals are large and stark white, clearly aiming to be as immediately legible as possible. The black dial has grooves cut into it horizontally that mimic those of the metal sheets used to build the fuselage of older airplanes.  

You can have your Pilot Automatic in stainless steel or black ceramic. The case shapes are new designs, with flat bezels and a simple circular shape with muscular lugs. The diameter is 40mm, which certainly invites comparisons to the IWC Mark XX, a very different kind of pilot’s watch with a design that leans heavily on history, as opposed to the Zenith which, especially in ceramic, has a more contemporary aesthetic. 

The Pilot Big Date Flyback is the more interesting of the two watches on paper, incorporating a chronograph and a big date display near 6:00 which Zenith boasts has a near instantaneous jump at midnight. Once again, this watch is available in both steel and a fully blasted ceramic. The steel version pays tribute to something of a modern classic from Zenith, the El Primero “Rainbow” from 1997, via colorful markings in the minute totalizer near 3:00. The black ceramic version reads to me like a completely modern tool watch with pilot adjacent tendencies, and not a strict adherent to pilot chronograph orthodoxy, which I think is the whole point. These aren’t really meant to be instruments used for flying specifically, rather they’re a riff on an old theme seen through a modern lens. 

The Flyback, at 42.5mm, is a little bit bigger than the three hander, which of course is to be expected. It runs on the El Primero 3652 automatic chronograph movement, which is a column wheel design with flyback functionality and a patented date display at 6:00. 

The retail price for the steel Pilot Automatic has been set at $7,500 with its ceramic counterpart at $9,600. The Pilot Big Date Flyback in steel retails for $11,500, with the ceramic version topping out the range at $13,500. We’ll have hands-on impressions of the new Pilot collection from Zenith very soon, so watch this space. Zenith