Hamilton Khaki X-Mach Pilot’s watch

The now Swiss-owned former American Hamilton brand, the one that is responsible for the first electric wrist watch and the world’s first electronic watch Hamilton Pulsar, is going to soon start selling the world’s first timepiece featuring a real Machmeter!

Right, pilots among us will soon be able to put a real Machmeter on their wrists. Machmeter is a special flight instrument that measures the ratio of the true airspeed to the speed of sound and when that ratio reaches “1.0″ it means that you travel at the speed of sound, as simple as that. In theory. In practice, a Hamilton Khaki X-Mach’s proud owner is supposed to calculate the speed of his or her airplane manually feeding the watch the pressure altitude and the calibrated air speed values.

I don’t have a pilot’s license but I somehow feel that in a real plane there must be a dedicated gadget that does all these procedures automatically and with a lot better accuracy. So, the Machmeter here is merely for design’s sake and it serves its purpose well. At least, the Machmeter is not that banal as an ordinary tachymeter scale, which is also a pure decoration these days.

The rest of the story is more or less prosaic. The Khaki X-Mach watch comes powered by the omnipresent Valjoux 7750. We’ve already seen it in such timepieces as the DOXA Ultraspeed, Victorinox Alpnach, Victorinox AirBoss Mach 6 Power Gauge and the gorgeous Chopard Mille Miglia GT XL Chrono Speed Black chronometer. Show me a chronograph watch and I will show you a 7750 happily ticking inside its case.

Talking about cases, in this particular, err, case, the watch’s, err, case is a 44mm PVD-treated stainless steel job that comes fit with either a black or brown leather strap or a more modern-looking rubber bracelet. Just like some other recent chronograph models, the X-Mach’s pair of pushpieces serves both practical and decorative purpose and also provide the crown some extra protection.

As to the dial, it perfectly serves its purpose of telling you the time thanks to its jet-black face and contrasting white-colored hands and Arabic numerals. However, I highly doubt that you’ll be able to operate the “CAL. AIR SPEED” and the “PRESS. ALT. THOUSANDS of FT.” scales, unless you have a pair of eagle’s eyes.

Hamilton Khaki X-Mach watch’s specification :

Price range: 1245 Euro, 1645 USD, 1895 CHF
Movement: Valjoux 7750, automatic
Complications: Machmeter, date, day of week
Power reserve: N/A but 7750-powered chronographs usually have a power reserve of some 46 hours
Case material: Stainless steel, transparent caseback with sapphire crystal
Case diameter: 44mm
Case height: N/A
Dial: Black with white numerals and indices
Water resistance: 100m
Strap: Brown or black leather or rubber strap
Crystal: Sapphire