Top IWC Pilot’s Watches In 2024

It isn’t exactly uncommon for a brand to be better known for one style of watch than any other, but few brands could claim to draw as much of their identity from a single category as IWC does from Pilot’s watches.

It is telling that the brand’s most celebrated complication — the Kurt Klaus-designed Perpetual Calendar that has been delighting watch fans the world over for four decades now — has been deployed on so many Fliegers despite the marriage of aviation and long-term date-keeping not being the most natural of pairings. IWC knows what its customers want and, by giving it to them, has almost created an accidental sub-category of ultra-complicated Pilot’s watches.

But not everything has to be a chronograph or perpetual calendar to fly off the shelves (it just so happens that most are). Below, I’ve included one watch that featured in my “Top Five IWC Watches in 2024” (obviously), but (perhaps less obviously) it isn’t at the top of the less, despite being the only watch here to feature. While that might seem totally crazy to some people (and you’d have a pretty strong argument if so), it features lower down the list because while I personally like it as an everyday watch more than the Pilot watches above it, it isn’t as a good a representative of the category itself. With that potential controversy addressed, let’s get to it.

I’ll admit it. I’m a bit of a Top Gun fanatic. While I do find the marriage of a semi-fictional flying school from a movie with a series of watches, you can’t deny the fit. Or the appropriateness of the Top Gun logo. Or Tim Cruise. Although he’s mad as a box of frogs, he’s still a bonafide legend of the silver screen, turning in follow-up performance as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell that was believable and touchingly nuanced when most of us probably expected three hours of sad cosplay.

I’ve said many times, very loudly, that Top Gun Maverick is the greatest film ever made (NB: it’s a great way to start a bar fight). I don’t actually believe that of course, but I would, in all seriousness make a case for it being the best IMAX film of all time (and it’s fair to say it played a significant role in saving the cinema-going experience, post-COVID).

A film of such standing deserves a similarly prestigious watch partnership. It got one with IWC. Reference IW389402 makes it onto the list because it is an excellent mixture of a traditional canvas, modern aesthetics, and a thematically sensible partnership. This is a military timepiece. As such, its desert tan colourway is believable. It’s also one of the more affordable special edition Pilot’s chronographs from IWC, coming in at £10,500.

The same watch but with a steel case and a vibrant teal colourway to mark the brand’s also-logical partnership with Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. It’s just an aesthetic choice but it’s one I love. This model looked arguably better on the limited edition “watermelon red” rubber strap, which “de-tealed” the offering while somehow managing to increase its vibrancy. Bizarre but brilliant. It’s also just £7,350, which is surprisingly decent of the brand, who likely could have priced this at five figures and gotten away with it.

Here it is. The Black Aces special edition. For my thoughts on this one, check out our recent article on the Top 5 IWC Watches In 2024 here.

The Mark XX is an exceptionally boring watch. However, it is boring in the best way. There’s no better everyday watch in the IWC collection, and while it doesn’t look like much watch for your money on-screen, on the wrist, it is a different story. The machining and finishing justify the price tag (£5,700), which, while affordable in the context of the brand, is steep for such a simply styled watch.

Here, you pay for the name and the execution. If that’s your jam, this is the way to go.

I can almost hear “Dangerzone” playing in the distance. In fairness, I almost always can. But that speaks to a well-spent youth, ogling McGillis and wishing it was my motorbike she was perching on.

Nowadays, I’m more bothered about the watch she might have chosen to wear, had she been featured in the Top Gun sequel. My guess is that a no-nonsense instructor would settle for nothing less than the best of type and, since she wasn’t a pilot herself, she’s less likely to die in a fireball/ejection incident, and so might get her money’s worth out of a perpetual calendar.

For me, as garish as it is, the all-white ceramic Top Gun Lake Tahoe edition is the best of the best. It unites IWC’s technical mastery on the inside and the outside while staying on mission. It’s a Pilot’s watch but not as we’ve known them in the past. For me, a clear winner. But what do you think? Let us know how wrong or right I got it in the comments below.