Big Pilot Top Gun Boutique Rodeo Drive

In Context

At 46 mm it is a large watch — well above this catalogue’s 40 mm median, and enough to dominate a narrow wrist. At 15 mm it is a tall case, and it will catch on a cuff. The case back is open, so the movement is visible without taking the watch apart, and the sapphire crystal will resist everything short of deliberate abuse. 60 m covers rain and hand-washing comfortably; it is not a watch to swim in.

The movement winds itself from the motion of your wrist. 168 hours of reserve puts it well past a weekend — several days off the wrist and it is still going. At 21,600 vph the seconds hand advances 6 times a second, the slower and more audible rate of an older design.

IW5020-03 is one of 3 executions of the IW5020 base reference. Underneath they are the same watch; what separates this one is a titanium, ceramic case. It was a limited edition. Introduced in 2015.

A seven-day movement wound by IWC's Pellaton system, in which a cam on the rotor rocks a pair of pawls so that motion in either direction feeds the barrel. The 168-hour reserve comes from a single oversized barrel rather than two, and the slow 3 Hz beat is what lets one barrel run that long. Compared with the 51011 it gains a balance bridge in place of a balance cock — anchored at both ends, so the balance staff stays truer under shock.

35 other watches in the library run the IWC 51111.

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