Fortis B-42 Flieger Black Cockpit GMT Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Dec 21st 2010 at 12:01PM

Night and day! No really, the black and white on this watch dial are meant to evoke just that - night and day. Does it do it with year round precision? No, but the idea is that when the hour hand is in the above section it might be night-hours, and vice-versa. None of that make a lot of sense unless this is a GMT watch - but it is. Rather than use a GMT hand, it uses a disc that peeks out of a window at about 9 o'clock. Does this GMT indicator style go with just such a black/white dial? No, but let's leave that alone for the sake of thematic style.

This is Fortis' new B-42 Flieger Black Cockfit GMT watch - and from a visually perspective it is certainly eye catching. The case is 42mm wide in PVD black steel with a super high-contrast black and white dial with a serious aviator spirit. I think it lacks a bit of the legibility found in other Fortis watches for it to be taken as seriously by die-hard aviator professionals, but it will certainly garners its share of attention. The case is water resistant to 200 meters and has an AR coated sapphire crystal.

Inside the watch is a Swiss ETA 2893 automatic GMT movement, and the simple watch case comes matched to a simple rubber or leather strap. Not a spectacular watch, but decent nonetheless. Fortis is making it as a limited edition of just 2,012 pieces. Look for it soon.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: 672.18.11, b-42, black, flieger, fortis, gmt, watch