I use my watch a lot when I fly (late model Cessna 172 with modern avionics and a simple digital panel clock).
Being a VFR guy, I plan cross country legs using predicted winds and cruising airspeed, so I have expectations about how long certain legs of my trip will take.
I use the adjustable outer ring on my watch to set ETAs for myself at the start of each leg/turn/event. That way I can tell if I’m battling stronger winds than expected, or if I might have to adjust my fuel management strategy.
So, chalk me up as thinking a watch is useful in the cockpit.
While I certainly understand the reason for not wanting to scrape the face of the watch against rocks etc., why turn it inward? Then you have to turn it around every time you want to read it, and turn it back again. What about the low-tech solution out of Hollywood, as shown on Stargate SG1 for example: a black hard cloth that covers the watch face and is fastened with a velcro strap?
You don’t have to turn it around, and in fact, it is generally easier (especially when bearing a weapon or carrying equipment) to see the inside of the wrist than the outside.
The cloth cover over the watch face isn’t a novel idea; however, it has two drawbacks; one is that the velcro or snap closure makes sound, and the other is it requires a free hand to handle the cover.
I am not a pilot so I don’t know if this is the real reason. But if you turn the face inward you can read the dial with your hands on the yoke. With the dial facing out you must take you hand off the yoke to see the watch.
I wear my watch facing out on my wrist. I’ve never had to take my hand off a yoke to read the watch face, it just requires a slight twist of the wrist and no more.
I do wear my watch on the right instead of the left, though - a habit I picked in airplanes set up to use the stick with my right hand, which is thus in front of me, and the throttle with my left in a location to my side and somewhat to the rear. In such circumstances, I can view the watch when it’s on my right wrist without letting go of anything, but if it’s on the left I have to take my hand off the throttle which is considered bad form at the least, and at the worst may be a bad idea.
Back in my Army days, the watch to have was a G-Shock with the plastic face bezel. In addition to being sturdy and waterproof, the 2 popular features were the countdown timer and the push-button backlight. The countdown timer was good for letting you know how much time you had for a given task, and the backlight was superior to luminous paint because it didn’t even throw a tiny glow except when you pushed the button to read it. Soldiers are big on light discipline; I guess that isn’t such a concern for SEAL’s after reading about the Luminox lighting.
Illumination control (or “light discipline” as you term it) is definitely a big deal for anyone doing infiltration ops. It took a long time before tritium sights were allowed on SpecOps weapon specifications for fear of the light being seen, even though the only way to actually see the lights is to be essentially looking over the shoulder of the shooter.
The Casio G-Shock watch you refer to had another neat feature (or at least some models did) in that it had a setting that would automatically illuminate the face when the watch was tilted at a particular and somewhat awkward angle that would be unusual to achieve by accident, letting the user illuminate the face one handed. Several of the former ops people I knew, however, favored cheap East German watches on the basis that they were inexpensive, durable, and didn’t immediately peg them as Americans the way a Timex would. (None of these people, mind you, were actively involved in operations; it was just more of an inculcated mindset.) The Rolexes and Omegas are frankly more of a fashion statement than an irreplaceable chronograph, and the accuracy and capability of these watches was far superceded by the inexpensive Japanese digital watches.
I own a original sized Luminox SEALS watch Mine has a blue face, not black, but other than that, it is identical to what is issued to the teams. It is not giant for a fact, I have other watches that are much larger and thicker. Goofy looking? IMHO, no, but YMMV.
This watch is the greatest watch ever. It does not matter how dark the night, I can look at this watch face and tell right away the time down to the second. I can even do this in the middle of the night without my glasses.
I can’t say that about my TAG or my Doxa, or my other watches. Even the LCDs with push button lighting aren’t clear enough to read without my glasses.
IIRC, Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff has something about this. In one passage, Wolfe was dealing with that strange combination of ego and insecurity that many people have and which was endemic among the fighter pilots from the 50s and 60s about whom he was writing. One of the manifestations of both was the way in which pilots of the era all started wearing these huge chunky watches as a sort of club tie and secret handshake. That may be the origin of the meme.
