Tutima Glashütte Expands Grand Flieger Airport Series with Four New Models, Two Colorways

This past fall, Glashütte-based Tutima revitalized its Grand Flieger Airport series, unveiling four new models in two new colorways. The expansion, which includes two new Grand Flieger Airport Chronographs and an additional two Grand Flieger Airport Automatics, breathes new life into the 1940s-pilot-watch-inspired collection, promising to bring “traditional reliability and legibility with a new bidirectional rotating bezel and red marking point.”

The new colorways are a military green and a deep blue, with both dials featuring a dégradé effect for both the chronograph and automatic versions.

Grand Flieger Airport Chronograph

The Grand Flieger Airport Chronograph has a 43-mm brushed steel case in the vintage-inspired Flieger style. Among its historically informed features are the slightly curved lugs, the onion-inspired crown, and the understated pump pushers, all drawing their influence from 1940s German chronographs. The model is strapped on either a steel three-link bracelet or a textile strap, both secured via a folding clasp.

Overhanging the dial is one of the series’ signature traits, its bidirectional rotating bezel marked with a 60-minute scale and topped with a red dot at its top, a feature that takes direct inspiration from some rare, war-era pilots’ chronographs. The bezels’ coloring matches that of the dial, either dark green or blue.

Under a domed sapphire crystal, the dial sports a dégradé effect and is relatively straightforward due its lack of a tachymetric or telemetric scale, which can often complicate the look of chronographs. On the outer edge is a simple white-printed minute ring, accented at each 5-minute position with large, printed rectangle hour markers and topped with a double marker at 12 o’clock. Also toward the top of the dial is the 30-minute chronograph counter, flanked on its bottom left by a running seconds counter and on its bottom right by a printed Tutima logo alongside day and date indicators. Balancing it at the bottom of the dial, and featuring the most prominent color accent, is a 12-hour counter printed in red and white, echoing the color of the red dot on the outer bezel. Sweeping over it all are two plain white sword hands and a red-colored pointer for chronograph seconds.

On the opposite side, a sapphire exhibition caseback protects the Tutima Caliber 310, an automatic movement based upon the ever-reliable ETA/Valjoux 7750. This version of the base mechanism is finished by the brand with a gold sealed, grey rotor and polished screws. The 25-jewel movement is capable of a 48-hour power reserve.

Grand Flieger Airport Automatic

The simpler half of the new line extension is represented in the Grand Flieger Airport Automatic, a three-hand day-date watch presented in the same two new colorways as the Chronograph.

Like the chronograph, the Automatic opts for a brushed steel flieger-style case, with the same 43-mm sizing, slightly curved lugs, and vintage-influenced onion style crown. Also like the chronograph models, it features a ceramic 60-minute bezel. Absent, of course, are the chronograph pushers due to this model’s lack of that additional complication.

The minute ring of the green or blue dégradé dial uses simple white tick marks and rectangular markers at the hours. Unlike the chronograph version of the watch, the Automatic is much simpler in its dial display, complicated only at the 3 o’clock position with a dual day/date indicator. Sweeping over these features are slim sword-style hour and minute hands and a slimmer running seconds hand. Conspicuously, the seconds pointer on the Automatics is not colored in red to match the bezel’s red dot.

Inside the 200-meter water resistant case is Tutima Caliber 330, this movement based on the ETA 2836. Like the chronograph version of the watch, the brand-finished automatic mechanism is visible via a sapphire exhibition caseback, though compared to the chronograph, it has a reduced power reserve — only 38 hours rather than 48.

Pricing and Availability

Each of the Grand Flieger Airport editions are available now at authorized Tutima boutiques on an ongoing basis. The Chronograph models retail for $3,900 on a textile strap and for $4,300 on a metal bracelet, while the Automatics retail for $2,500 on the textile strap and $2,900 on the metal bracelet.

To learn more and inquire for purchase, you can visit Tutima’s website, here.