Longines Brings Avigation BigEye Into the 21st Century
Aerial navigator’s watch gets a titanium case and textured petrol blue dial.
Longines has treated its historic 1930’s pilots chronograph, the Avigation BigEye, to a modern makeover with a lightweight titanium case and a striking petrol blue dial.
The Avigation (a portmanteau of ‘aviation’ and ‘navigation’) BigEye (named after its oversized 30-minute counter at the three o’clock) was reintroduced to the Longines collection in 2017 with a faithful steel-cased, black-dialed reissue, although this new reference brings the model into the modern era with contemporary touches.
Longines has maximised legibility with white-on-black chronograph registers and a faux-vintage shade of Super-LumiNova used to illuminate hands and Arabic numeral hour markers against the watch’s smoked or gradient deep blue dial.
Longines has also equipped the 41mm Avigation BigEye Titanium with an exclusive L688 chronograph movement, which features a column wheel and silicon balance wheel, to resist against interference from magnetic fields. The watch also comes with a five-year warranty.
Sapphire crystal, with multiple layers of anti-reflective coating, protects the dial, while a solid titanium caseback features a debossed silhouette of an aeroplane on the reverse.
Exhibition casebacks showing off the movement inside a watch are now almost an industry standard but require that the movement inside receives extra levels of finishing and decoration, which all adds to the final price. Here Longines has clearly opted to bypass that finishing in favour of competitive pricing, with the Avigation BigEye Titanium now on sale for $3,225 USD via Longines.
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