A good looking mechanical pilot chronograph watch for only USD300/- new? Yes, its possible if you forget the Swiss and German brands with four figure price tags and go Russian instead. Poljot is known to make lookalikes of many famous Swiss and German watches and this one looks just like Fortis' awarding winning Flieger Chronograph.
In fact, many of Poljot's Aviator series watches resemble models from Fortis' Flieger line. So much so that Fortis took Poljot to court, with the results of the lawsuit being an injunction prohibiting Poljot from selling their Aviator line of watches in Switzerland and Germany.
Of course, we are not comparing the USD300/- Poljot to the Fortis Flieger (retail USD2050/- street USD1400), but we'll just take a look at an example of what a Poljot's Aviator watch got to offer.
The watch came with a rather nice leather box. This actually varies from seller to seller and you don't always get the box, but who needs the box anyway?
The dial is very legible with a military look. The indexes are marked with arabic numbers in both hours and five minutes/seconds increments. The chronograph hands are in red, while the normal hands are in white. The size of the hands are very well balanced and suits the dial very well. In addition to being very functional, it is also very attractive. Well, who designed it in the first place? :D
The original Poljot strap (not shown) doesn't look very promising. I switched it to a Di Modell Chronissimo immediately. I feel that the Chronissimo strap enhances the look of many pilot watches and chronographs.
The crown is big enough for a handwind watch and its signed with the letter A, which probably refers to 'Aviator'. The chronograph buttons felt tactile enough even with gloved hands.
The watch is powered by the Poljot 3133 movement. The 3133 movement is based on the Swiss Valjoux 7734 movement and in fact its made with Swiss tooling. In the 1970s the Russians bought the machine and tooling over from the Swiss and made modifications to it, raising its thickness from 7mm to 7.35mm, adding 6 jewels to the original 17, and increasing the beat rate from 18000 bpm to 21600 bpm.
It is a very reliable movement that was eventually used for space flight missions. Although its rated for a power reserve of 42 hours, I am getting over 60 hours actually, which is pretty common. Accuracy is constant and very good, I am getting about +15 secs a day for this watch.
The watch came with both glass display back and steel back options. Mine came with both, here's the glass case back showing the P3133 movement; raw, unrefined, undecorated, but reliable and tough like a soldier.
With the steel case back, the water resistant is 50 meters instead of 30 meters. Oh yeah, Poljot often made 999 pieces of each model.
Lume is not something the Russian watches are good in. The application isn't very good nor consistent and the glow is weak. It also does not last long. I never had high expectations for Russian lume in the first place so I'm not really disappointed. This watch comes with white lume paint, there is another version with green lume paint, though both glows green however.
Here's a wrist shot of it on my 6.5" to 6.75" wrist. The case size is 39mm without crown, but actually wears bigger because its all dial and bezel-less. Someone with large wrists can always boost its size with a BUND strap if desired.
Here are the specs:
Case size 39mm without crown, 44mm with crown
Lug to lug 46mm
Lug size 20mm
Dial size 35mm wears big coz its all dial.
Case height (thickness) 12.5mm
Water Resistant 30meters with glass display back, 50 meters with metal case back
Mineral glass crystal
Sandblast stainless steel case with a pearly finish
In my humble opinion, this is an ideal watch for those in service. How many active servicemen wear expensive USD2000/- Swiss watches out there in the field?
Russian watch prices had been raising crazily in recent years, so I find these are really good buys before prices soar further.
Thanx for the read!
