IWC SCHAFFHAUSEN’s most action-ready pilot’s chronograph.

It’s not entirely clear when, or how, the US Navy Fighter Weapons School became unofficially known to all at the Miramar air force base and beyond as “TOPGUN”, but pictures exist of signage bearing the evocative name from the very first class of hotshot pilots in 1969. The protocol may have evolved since – it’s now called the Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor (SFTI) programme, and in fact has not been based at Miramar since 1996, when it moved to Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada – but the name has remained.

It’s also hard to know how much of a factor the name was in convincing journalist Mr Ehud Yonay to pen a 9,000 word feature for the May 1983 issue of California magazine (fun fact: the call-signs for the pilots profiled were “Yogi” and “Possum”). Or how much the headline “Top Guns” influenced producers Messrs Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer to purchase the film rights. But you can’t deny that it’s marketing gold: shorthand for the glamorous flyboy image that made a generation of teenage boys want to leap into the cockpit of an F-14 (it’s been described as the film that single-handedly rehabilitated the US military’s image after Vietnam). And no matter how badly you think the film has aged since, even the most die-hard peacenik can probably make the link between Top Gun and elite fighter pilots. 

IWC has been producing watches under the “Top Gun” name since 2007 – an age in brand tie-in years, which tells its own story – and in 2018 created a chronograph available only to pilots who were actually enrolled in the programme. Now, originally intended to coincide with Mr Tom Cruise’s return to the role that propelled him to superstardom, it has released a version for us mere mortals whose experience of elevated G-forces tends to come bookended by the Disney parade and a bucket of pick-n-mix, and it shoots straight to the top of the pile when it comes to pilot’s chronographs.

The 44mm case is ceramic, with a Ceratanium caseback and pushers (a blend of ceramic and titanium, proprietary to IWC). Urgent red details abound: little rings of colour around each chronograph pusher and a red hand for the running seconds dial at six o’clock; the watch measures chronograph hours, minutes and seconds, and the central seconds hand counterweight is styled to represent a stencil outline of a Navy jet. It’s strapped to your wrist with a green fabric strap – a detail that, to my eyes, off-sets the smooth black case and intensely high-contrast dial perfectly.

Inside, the movement remains unchanged from the existing Pilot’s Top Gun Chronograph: IWC’s in-house 69380 column-wheel automatic, one of several from the brand’s 69000 family and a sibling to the movements found in the Portugieser and Ingenieur chronographs, all beating at 4Hz with 46 hours in the tank.

Materials: Ceramic with green textile strap

Diameter: 44mm

Height: 15.7mm

Water-resistance: 60m

Power reserve:  46 hours

Price: £8,550