Omega 'Spitfire'?

Just found a spitfire watch Corr Vintage Watches, its either true or Omega research team uses ebay for ref name and you know people on ebay like to big up a watch to ask for more lol

Click to expand...

I think they are claiming that the watch was a Spitfire pilot's watch, not that the watch is actually called a 'Spitfire'.

"History is written by the victors"...
and the Marketing Departments.

Click to expand...

Oh don't be so cynical, it's a well known fact that the commander of Twelve Group, fighter command, Trafford Leigh-Mallory insisted that all of his pilots wore Rolex Air King watches to commemorate the successful ascent, but tragically unsuccessful descent, of Everest by his brother George Leigh-Mallory, who carried a Rolex Oyster to the summit as part of the top secret R&D process that led to the Explorer. The dispute between Keith Park, AOC commanding Eleven Group, who insisted his Spitfire pilots wore the almost eponymous Omega and Mallory who was equally insistent on them using the Air king led to the so called 'big king' controversy, one of the most contentious events of the Battle of Britain.

The famous ace, Douglas Bader, argued that the allegedly superior timekeeping of the Air King allowed his pilots to rapidly form up into larger formations, the so called 'big kings' named after the watch that he, and his commander, believed made assembling such complex formations possible. Park, on the other hand, insisted on the flexibility of using single squadrons. Whether this strategy was forced on him because of the reliability of his watches or a tactical choice has been a moot point for over seventy years. Likewise, the assertion that the Air King had a tendency to run slow, causing the Big Kings to tend to intercept aircraft after they had bombed rather than before has been hotly denied by the secret Rolex service department at White Waltham.

Whatever the truth, the fact is that, shortly after the successful defence of British airspace that led directly to the cancellation of Operation Sealion, the proposed invasion of Britain, the C in C of Fighter command and architect of the victory was retired and shunted abroad, while Park, the commander who bore the brunt of the battle, was moved to a training command.

While this looked like a victory for Rolex, they rapidly realised that the market was about to be flooded with cheap American fakes and abruptly changed their marketing strategy; Bader, their most successful advocate, was parachuted into Germany (under a cover story of being shot down) to set up a successful chain of Rolex concessions in prisoner of war camps. The rest, they say, is history.

Sorry.

teeritz said:

My God, even as I was reading it, I wasn't sure if my leg was being pulled. I'm still not certain now.
Welcome back, M4tt!

Click to expand...

What do you mean 'leg being pulled?' you only have to Google it to see it is all true. Obviously, the covert and highly secret battle between Rolex and Omega was rather ineffectively camouflaged by British Intelligence in much the same way as they pretended that eating carrots was the secret of British night fighter pilots' success. In fact, it was the combination of the superior lume of Omega watches, that allowed them to navigate accurately without lights at night, and onboard radar to home in on a target once in the right place. Even today, people believe carrots help you see in the dark and that Omega lume is rubbish.

Look at the facts: in nineteen forty, Douglas Bader was a very junior commander, while he had been in the RAF from the late twenties, without promotion, he was pensioned off in 1933 after losing his legs while ignoring regulations and performing aerobatics with no safety margin. He rejoined the RAF in October 1939, by April of 1940 was put in charge of a squadron and by August of 1940, while still only a flight lieutenant, he was routinely given tactical control of as many as five squadrons. In short, in under a year Bader went from a civilian ex pilot officer to the responsibilities usually afforded to a wing commander.

For an ordinary pilot, this meteoric rise would be unthinkable, but for a Rolex ambassador, tasked with turning Leigh-Mallory's obsession with Rolex into a military and commercial success it makes perfect sense. Bader was catapulted into the middle of this controversy as Rolex's representative with the task of showing that the Air King was the watch the Air Ministry needed. I will not get into the details of the apparent over claiming by the so called Big King and infamous sales meeting at the Air Ministry, but the subtle hand of the Rolex publicity department is clear throughout.

In these days of satnav and GPS, it is easy to forget how important navigation was and the critical role that chronometers had served in the British military since Harrison perfected the Ship's chronometer. Unfortunately, then as now, both Omega and Rolex chronometers were prohibitively expensive, and the purchase of so many watches by the RAF and by individual pilots, left both the pilots and the Government heavily in debt, a fact wryly commented upon by Churchill when summing up the battle: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few". It still defies belief that Rolex and Omega, working together, have managed to completely change the public perception of this statement and duck Churchill's clear accusation of profiteering.

I'm disappointed in you Tino!

It's nice to see someone knows a bit about the history of Omega. Mind you, I have always suspected that the failings in the 'Dynamic' were a deliberate policy on the part of Omega. For example, have you ever noticed the absolute commitment to nuclear disarmament hidden in plain sight on the dial of the Speedmaster range?



It's so blatant, I don't know how they expected to get away with it!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7292252.stm

(for the younger generation)