Horological Meandering

SuitbertW
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Longines....

Hello, Frank,
Longines during  beginning  of 20th. century is just an incredible company - especially in regards of technical standards, diversity in technical and esthetical aspects....
It will be difficult to find a second company similarily involved in early flight history as well (which means military background at the same time...).
I'm sure it will be easy to find plenty of  information about this history - even the Zepellins were equipped with Longines timekeepers (those make up a good
esthetical prototype for the Glashütte chrono, btw - even though those were staionary instruments - but al the rest is there).

Longines movements during that period have been always to the highest standards - cosmetically and technically - that doesn't mean they were fragile
or inappropriate for "tool watches". The famous wristwatch chronograph for the Istituto Idrografico R. Marina comes to mind - equipped with cal. 13ZN and
that one shoould be somewhere around 1936-1938....
There's a large number of wrist watch chronographs with cal. 13ZN which could well be considered "tool watches" - even though the movement was
cosmetically finished top notch - that just was the Longines standard of that time.

AFAIK there's no direct connection to the german developements of that time - but of course the flyback idea was found there first.

The relatively low standards of german military watches is easy to explain - costs - nobody was looking for a "nice" solution - and there was no need to last for decades....
Same for the movements, ease of production - even more ease of assembling as they eraly faced problems of specialized watchmakers....that explains the basic quality
of springs, steel levers/parts - the functional parts/surfaces still beeing good though.
Look at the cheapo wire springs of later iterations of the UROFA 59 and the Hanhart....or the simple flat spring for minute counter wheel - they tried to reduce
hand finish and adjustement work to the minimum - cost cutting and lack of qualified workers -war time. The end product still was working ok - but by far not up
to the staqndards of the industry in Switzerland .

As for the shock protection - during design stage UROFA  obviously opted for the Shock-Resist version (thet's a brand name not anymore existing today - during that time
Longines for example was frequently using this type as well) - apparently this wasn't easy to get supplied or even impossible.
Hanhart though chose Incabloc - obviously they didn't have problems to get necessary supplies for it - no idea about the background though.

As for swiss help in these projects - I have some ideas and findings about this, but as I don't know yet what's the real background, I'm not feeling comfortable to
reveal this.

Best regards
Suitbert