One of my pet peeves (I have many) are ads for multi-10s of thousands of dollar watches that seem to indicate they are a requirement for flying high performance aircraft. They typically show someone in a full pressure suit or at least G-suit in a high performance cockpit with the sky outside, and indicate that this watch is how you get there. Or an antique fighter or racer with the same message. These ads have about as much truth to them as your average beer commercial.

Allow me to interject some reality into this situation. My aircraft has 6 video displays in the cockpit, all of which can display the time from the GPS constellation down to a level where they correct for the Time Dilation effect from the speed of the satellite in orbit. Moreover, from the time of my first GPS (which was about the time I started flying, they became more common about the time I got my license), I have never looked at the clock in the aircraft again. The GPS tells me where I am at, when I will get to my destination and what time it will be when I get there (local and Zulu). All without removing my glove (a complex maneuver in a G-suit) while trying not to crash or rip the wings off the plane in the process.

Chronograph watches? Please. I don’t carry a buggy whip when I fly either…