Today, we’ve come to the last Swiss Eagle model that we’ve currently got on hand for a review – the Flight Deck.
Not surprisingly (given the name), this is part of their Fly collection (our sample is ref. 9023). While I tend to think of tachymeter scales / bezels being used more on land or water, I suppose they could be used just as well in the air.
And since it has those scales, you’re probably guessing that we’ve got a true chronograph on our hands, and that would be a very correct statement. That, in turn, gives us the following dial layout:
- Main time seconds at 2 o’clock
- Chrono hours at 6 o’clock
- Chrono minutes at 10 o’clock
- Chrono seconds with the large second hand
Along with that layout, we have a dial design that (if my eyes don’t deceive me), is actually carried over from the Landmaster that we took a look at last week – similar concentric circles and machined numerals and indices. Here, though, the numerals are a bit “chopped”, as the various sub-dials cut into them.
While I like the machined numerals themselves, when they only partially appear as they do here, I feel that the dial would be better served by small indices instead. And, as long as we’re focusing on minor tweaks to the dial, of course I’d love to see a color-matched date wheel (black with white numerals) used.
In terms of the chronograph functions, they worked as you would expect – the top pusher controls the start/stop, and the lower pusher engages the split time and reset functionality. While you could ostensibly use the rotating (bi-directional) bezel for calculating speeds, you’ll want to be careful not to bump it, as it does not lock in place (ie, no clicks), which would throw things off.
Now that we’ve covered some design and functionality aspects, that leaves us with some of the other hard specs, and experience in daily wear. For that, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
