Hamilton Expand Khaki Aviation Pilot with New Day-Date 42mm and Auto 36mm

When it comes to daily beaters and tool watches designed for daily use, Hamilton are a name that should always be on your lips. With watches like the Khaki Field Expedition they perfectly capture the rugged beauty of an adventure watch while maintaining an accessible price point and solid mechanics. Their latest set of releases maintain all the same positives while being aviation themed as opposed to land-based Expedition, they’re the Khaki Aviation Pilot Day-Date 42mm and Auto 36mm.

Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Day-Date 42mm

There are a trio of new Khaki Aviation Pilot Day-Date 42mm watches, each with broad 42mm cases in stainless steel. Although they’re by no means the largest Pilot Day-Dates in Hamilton’s repertoire with the mammoth 46mm model dwarfing even these. At 42mm I think they’re very well sized because pilot’s watches need to be large in order to stay legible at a glance but at the same time, 42mm is appropriate for daily wear.

The dials are classic pilot’s watch fare with an oversize minute scale around the periphery and an inner hour scale on the middle disc of the display. Additionally, the indexes at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock are coated with lume for low light legibility, as are the filled sections of the partially skeletonised sword hands. Completing the display is the titular day-date complication at 3 o’clock. As for colours, you can choose from blue, green or silver, of which the khaki olive tone one is my favourite.

Powering the piece is the H-30 automatic movement, which is simply the Day-Date version of the better known H-10, which itself is a slightly modified version of the Powermatic 80 used across Swatch Group brands. It has a really solid 80-hour power reserve, which is impressive for the price. Speaking of, the Khaki Aviation Pilot Day-Date 42mm is £990 on steel bracelet or £915 on leather strap.

Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Auto 36mm

In addition to the 42mm models, Hamilton have released a quartet of 36mm references. At this size the idea of them being practical pilot’s watches starts to be reduced as frankly they’re a bit too small to compete with the thick gloves and leather flight jacket that are the signature regalia of a pilot. However, they make up for that in being ideal for daily use with more in common with a retro field watch than a thoroughbred pilot.

The argument could be made that at 36mm these are women’s watches and I do understand that point of view – there’s a rose PVD version and another with a silver dial and beige/rose lume that feel more on the feminine end of the spectrum. But at the same time there’s also a black and a blue dial version that are very unisex and ultimately all four watches are unisex. Especially as recent trends have been supporting smaller sizes.

Under the surface here is the H-10 automatic movement with 80-hour power reserve. On top of their good power reserves, the H-10 and H-30 both use a Nivachron hairspring, providing good anti-magnetic resistance. Interestingly, despite being much smaller and going without a date function, the Khaki Aviation Pilot Auto 36mm has the same price as the Day-Date 42mm at £990 on bracelet and £915 on strap, with the exception of the PVD model which is £990 too.

More details at Hamilton.

​Oracle Time 

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