Patek Philippe Calatrava Pilot Travel Time collection turns 10
The pilot’s watch that surprised horology a decade ago has since grown into a defining line, emblematic of the brand’s bold, adventurous spirit
YOU could call it Thierry Stern’s baby. The Calatrava Pilot Travel Time Ref 5524G was truly a new model, the first built from scratch under the Patek Philippe president’s watch. The piece turns 10 this year and has grown to be very much part of the Patek Philippe family.
It didn’t seem like it when the model first arrived in the world of watches. Not many watch fans, not even those keen observers of developments in Patek Philippe, saw it coming – and the surprise that followed wasn’t all that pleasant.
Critics didn’t think the 5524G looked like a Patek Philippe timepiece. After all, they claimed, the high-luxury Swiss watch brand didn’t do watches for pilots.
But it did, and there are two vintage aviation timepieces in the Patek Philippe Museum to prove it. They were made in the 1930s for pilots and navigators, who depended on them for speedy navigation and precise positioning. Traces of those two watches are found in the 5524G.
While it’s not as big as those 55.3 mm models, the 42 mm 5524G is still sizeable by Patek Philippe standards, to fit the look and the clarity of a pilot watch.
The lacquer dial, encased in white gold, is not black – the colour of traditional aviation timepieces – but its rich navy blue hue recalls the body paint of American fighter planes in the 1930s.
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Also, the Arabic numerals on the dial are large, and the sword-style steel hands for local and home time are broad and coated with Super-LumiNova that glows in the dark, providing legibility during the day and at night.
Yet, it’s not enough to just create another aviation watch, a re-edition or tribute. Stern, who succeeded his father Philippe in 2009, also wanted to stamp his presence with a strong masculine-looking 5524G that is fully functional for the modern man.
And, in an age of open borders, when flying is as affordable as riding a bus across town, what can be more useful to the modern man than a watch that also tells the time in another time zone?
The 5524G marries two watchmaking expertise Patek Philippe excels in: creating watches for aviation and watches for travelling.
The 294-part self-winding movement ticking inside it has an innovative travel time mechanism, the same one in the brand’s highly popular Travel-Time Aquanaut. Capable of displaying two different time zones, the mechanism was granted a patent in 1959; the refined version of it was awarded a further patent in 1996.
There was no debutante ball for the new pilot watch, but it was given an impressive exposure two years after at The Art of Watches Grand Exhibition in New York City. Minus the travel time mechanism, saved for three hands, the Calatrava Pilot New York 2017 Special Edition Ref 5522 was presented in a 600-piece limited edition.
Evolution of a modern classic
The success of the Calatrava Pilot Travel Time has spawned a series of Pilot Travel Time models in the past decade. A rose gold version of the original, along with a compact 37.5 mm rose gold model for women, was rolled out in 2018.
In the following year, the Alarm Travel Time Ref 5520P in platinum was added to the Pilot Travel Time line.
A Calatrava Pilot watch that pairs the Pilot dual time display and a minute-repeater style alarm mechanism – a first for Patek Philippe – the 5520P took five years to develop.
This “grand complication” watch, besides displaying two time zones, has a 24-hour alarm which is activated by a hammer striking on a classic gong. The whole set-up called for a totally new integrated movement that later won four patents.
Apart from the two familiar pushers regulating the local time, the 5520P has two new pushers for sounding the alarm and setting the alarm time. On the sun-burst ebony black dial, at 12 o’clock, is also a digital alarm display in 15-minute increments in a charcoal grey white gold frame.
The 42 mm Alarm Travel Time was the only chiming timepiece with a water-resistant case in the Patek Philippe collections, but it didn’t lack company. A smaller 37.5 mm variant of the model soon joined it in 2020. Last year, a 42.2 mm version in rose gold with a grey sun-burst dial was also added to the Alarm Travel Time series.
A year before, in 2023, there was another marriage in the Pilot Travel Time family when the travel time mechanism tied the knot with a flyback chronograph, a function dear to aviation pioneers.
The chronograph on the new Calatrava Pilot Travel Time Chronograph Ref 5924G is regulated by two pushers on a 42 mm white gold case. The pushers on the Pilot Time Travel models are for correcting local time, except for the 5924G, which relies on two large correctors to do the job, with the help of a dedicated stylus. These changes on the watch are in keeping with a clean design for the case.
Decorated on the 5924G’s face is a sun-burst blue-grey, or lacquered khaki green, dial. The timepiece is worn on a grained navy blue or olive green calfskin strap with vintage finish.
A new Pilot Travel Time watch marks the Calatrava Pilot Travel Time’s 10th anniversary this year. While the white gold case it flaunts is a symbolic return to the original watch, the latest 5524G sports a softer, more updated design. Instead of the original deep blue, its dial is ivory lacquer.
Blackened white gold applied numerals have replaced the original white Arabic digits, but they are still overlaid with luminescence. While the hands are still kept in the shape of the sword, the colour white they wore has turned charcoal-grey white.
And the brown calfskin strap the watch was paired with has given way to a khaki green substitute, cut from a composite material.
A decade on, what began as Thierry Stern’s daring experiment has become a modern Patek icon – proof that even the most traditional maisons can soar when they dare to chart new skies.
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