IWC Schaffhausen Big Pilot watches

The IWC Big Pilot's Watch, usually called the Big Pilot, goes back to the reference 431 of 1940: a 55 mm observation watch built to the Luftwaffe's specifications, with the pocket-watch calibre 52 T.S.C. inside. IWC delivered 1,000 of them, and the watch was nicknamed the Grosse Fliegeruhr, the big pilot's watch.

IWC revived it at Baselworld 2002 with the reference 5002: a 46.2 mm case and an in-house movement with Pellaton automatic winding and at least seven days of running time, shown on a power-reserve display at 3 o'clock. It kept the old watch's unusual marker at 12 and its oversized cone-shaped crown, with luminous Arabic numerals on a matte black dial. The 5004 of 2006 has a triangle at noon and a date at 6 but no 9 on the dial; the numeral came back in 2016. The later 52000-series movements added ceramic Pellaton parts and twin barrels. In 2021 IWC added the Big Pilot's Watch 43, the smallest Big Pilot to date, with the calibre 82100, a 60-hour power reserve and no date.

The three-hand Big Pilot and most of its complications use a 46 or 46.2 mm case, from the original IW5002 through the IW5004 to the IW5010. The complications are perpetual and annual calendars, a Big Date, a Monopusher and constant-force tourbillons. Top Gun versions run from 43.8 to 48 mm, mostly in ceramic or titanium, the grey ceramic Miramar among them, and the Heritage 55 returns to the 55 mm of the 1940 watch in titanium, limited to 100 pieces.

Cases come in steel, titanium, red, rose and white gold, platinum and bronze. The named editions follow a pattern: Le Petit Prince on blue dials, Antoine de Saint Exupéry on brown, Spitfire mostly in green or grey, often with bronze. Many gold, platinum and perpetual-calendar pieces were small runs for retailers such as Bucherer, Tourneau, Wempe and Orsini, some as unique pieces.