Not Completely Out Of The Blue: Introducing The Longines Spirit Pilot And Spirit Pilot Flyback With Blue Dials
A year after Longines debuted the refreshed and resized Spirit Pilot models, four new iterations are touching down. They’re not completely out of the blue. After the black versions, the Longines Spirit Pilot and Spirit Pilot Flyback with blue dials make perfect sense. So do the 39mm cases.
The initial black-dial Spirit Pilot and Spirit Pilot Flyback were met with much enthusiasm. Longines took the familiar Spirit recipe and, instead of adding more, toned it down. The Spirit Pilot was given its simplest form, while the Spirit Pilot Flyback brought back a key aviation complication — the flyback chronograph. A year later, these watches now come with blue dials, blue rubber straps, and, for the chronograph, a blue ceramic bezel. It’s a logical next step for the Longines Spirit Pilot. After all, anyone who has been into watches for a while knows that after black comes blue. And after blue comes…? Take a guess, and I will disclose my prediction in the final paragraph.
Introducing the Longines Spirit Pilot and Spirit Pilot Flyback with blue dials
A pilot’s watch with a black dial is a classic. But what is a pilot’s watch with a blue dial? A contemporary classic? I guess so, but the number of pilot-themed watches, from three-handers and GMTs to chronographs and even perpetual calendars with blue dials, is impossible to count. We’re living in an age when color variations are more important than ever. The times when a pilot needed a sober, functional black-dial watch are over. We’re now living in an age of desire. Plenty of people out there desire an aviation-themed watch, so brands need to keep their collections of pilot watches evolving to stay attractive. That means creating dial variations in all possible colorways. Blue is, more often than not, the first color variation to appear after a black-dial model.
Blue makes sense
Adding a matte blue dial to the Spirit Pilot and Spirit Pilot Flyback makes sense. Blue is, after all, widely considered the most popular color in the world. Longines knows this, which is why the two new models are also available with dial-matching, Swiss-made blue rubber straps. The chronograph also has a ceramic bezel insert in the color that reminds you of a cloudless sky and goes well with almost everything you wear. If that’s too blue for you, you can buy either Spirit Pilot model on a stainless steel bracelet with a micro-adjustable folding clasp.
To refresh your memory, the Spirit Pilot (€2,950 on the steel bracelet, €2,600 on the blue rubber strap) has a 39 × 47.2 × 11.5mm case and is outfitted with the L888.4 automatic caliber, featuring a silicon balance spring and components that provide magnetism resistance up to 10 times greater than the ISO 764 standard. The COSC-certified movement runs at a modern 25,200 vibrations per hour and offers up to 72 hours of power reserve. A screw-down crown and screw-in case back contribute to a 100m water resistance rating.
Silver-colored hands, applied Arabic numerals, and a refined minute track keep the matte blue dial very legible. The dial may have switched from purely functional black to more fashionable blue, but there’s still no unnecessary decoration to distract the pilot, so to speak.
Fly forth and immediately back again
The same functional approach, but in blue, is applied to the Spirit Pilot Flyback (€5,450 on the steel bracelet, or €5,100 on the blue rubber strap). In Longines’s history, the flyback function is a landmark. The company was working on flyback chronographs — watches that allow the user to restart the chronograph seconds hand from zero without stopping and resetting it first — as early as the 1930s. And Longines filed its patent for a flyback chronograph in 1935. So, even with a blue dial instead of a black one, the new watch has a legitimate historical connection to the technology rather than merely borrowing the name.
The latest version of the Spirit Pilot Flyback features a stainless steel case with a 39.5mm diameter, 47.4mm lug-to-lug, and 13.4mm thickness. Like the three-hand Spirit Pilot, the Flyback also offers 100m water resistance. As mentioned, a blue ceramic insert sits inside the bidirectional bezel and incorporates a countdown scale. Combined with the blue dial, it gives the watch a distinctly monochromatic appearance. The box-shaped sapphire crystal adds another vintage-inspired touch, while silver-colored hands and applied Arabic numerals with Super-LumiNova keep the cockpit-instrument theme intact.
A treat for fans of mechanical watchmaking
Powering the Flyback is the hand-wound Longines L792.4, and looking through the transparent screw-in case back is a treat for every fan of mechanical watchmaking. Yes, some movements have way better finishing, but you’ll also pay a price for that. Longines offers you a COSC-certified hand-wound flyback chronograph movement with an impressive 68-hour power reserve, a silicon balance spring, and a column wheel for less than €5.5k. And it comes in a very modest (read: “classic”) case size. In a world of often bulky and costly retro-styled aviation chronographs with less traditional and less pretty automatic calibers, the Spirit Pilot Flyback, in either blue or black, stands out.
By adding blue-dial versions to the Spirit Pilot lineup, Longines once again strengthened the Spirit collection. The two more contemporary blue models are a welcome addition to last year’s black enthusiast editions. I’m guessing that in 2027, we will see the launch of both the Longines Spirit Pilot and Spirit Pilot Flyback with green dials. What do you think? And do you like these blue versions? Please let me know in the comments section below.
