Lot 44

Longines / Wittnauer "Weems Hour Angle Sidereal Time", Movement No. 5442726, Case No. 5442726, Ref. 16, Cal. 18.69N, 47 mm, circa 1936
An aviator's rare, oversized wristwatch with centre seconds, sidereal time regulation and Weems second setting system
Case: silver, hinged push back. Dial: enamel chapter ring, inner silvered rotating disc.
During the early years of aviation between 1920 and 1930 the majority of pilots wore watches by Longines - at the time Longines was far ahead of other companies when it came to technical innovation.
Exact timekeeping was crucial for the progress in aviation and in the late 1920 an era of revolutionary developments in the navigation sector was set in motion. A pioneer in this field was US Navy Captain Philip Van Horn Weems, who was a teacher of the famous Charles A. Lindbergh. He invented a second-setting mechanism which allowed the pilots to set their watches to the closest second - Weems created a mobile dial for synchronising the second with the radio time signal. Longines patented this brilliant system in 1935.

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