As we count down to WatchTime New York 2016, taking place at Manhattan’s Gotham Hall, on October 14-15 (click here for event details and tickets), we continue to showcase highlight watches from the luxury watch brands exhibiting at the event. Today, we take a look at the Perrelet Turbine Pilot Grand Raid, a new limited-edition watch with a military-aviation flavor from the Swiss brand’s flagship Turbine collection.
The Perrelet Turbine Pilot Grand Raid is the latest addition to the Turbine Pilot collection, which made its debut in 2014. Like other models in the series, it is distinguished from other Turbine watches by the circular slide rule bezel that rings its moving, turbine-inspired double-rotor dial. Composed of concentric circles with different graduated scales, with an inner ring that rotates in both directions, this instrument, controlled by the crown at 3 o’clock, enables a pilot to quickly make numerical calculations and convert measurement data, two useful functions while in flight. The time is set by the inset crown at 9 o’clock on the opposite side of the case.
The watch has a black-PVD-coated steel case that measures an ample 48 mm in diameter and 13.65 mm thick. Beneath the 12 black, anodized aluminum turbine blades of the upper dial is a black under-dial with beige streaks, which reveals its face when the wearer’s wrist motions activate the five tungsten counterweights under the blades, spinning them for a dynamic optical effect of shifting colors. The hands, the Arabic numerals 3, 6, 9, and 12, and the hour markers applied to the sapphire crystal, are all coated with a beige luminous substance that echoes the look of the strap and glows brightly in low light.
The watch contains an in-house movement, Perrelet Caliber P-331, with automatic winding, 25 jewels, a frequency of 28,800 vph, and a power reserve of 42 hours. Among the movement’s haute horlogerie decorations — which can be admired through a sapphire caseback window — is a blanked, rhodium-plated winding rotor emblazoned with the Perrelet logo.
The Perrelet Turbine Pilot Grand Raid, a limited edition of 100 pieces, comes on a beige nylon strap with a black-PVD-treated steel buckle. If you want to find how it looks and feel on your own wrist, click here to reserve your spot at WatchTime New York 2016.
