Ready for Takeoff: The Story of Longines and the Pioneers of Aviation

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2021-06-05 14:00:05

Daring pilots relied on Longines watches aboard their flying machines in the 1920s and 1930s. The brand’s recently launched Spirit models recall this exciting history.

Freezing cold. Deafening noise. Leaden fatigue. He’s been flying for 11 hours and now night has fallen over the Atlantic Ocean. It will be more than twice as long before he lands. Charles Lindbergh is alone. He had already been awake for 23 hours when he took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island. Now he’s struggling to keep his eyes open. The cold is his ally: the cockpit is open and a frigid wind whistles around his ears and ceaselessly shakes his plane. Despite thick gloves, his hands are nearly numb. But he knows he will persevere. Not just to claim the $25,000 prize that American hotelier Raymond Orteig has offered to the first person that can fly nonstop from New York to Paris, but to become immortal. When Lindbergh finally lands in Paris at 10:22 p.m. local time, tens of thousands of enthusiastic spectators cheer him and crowd around his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis.

The American pilot traveled 33 hours and 39 minutes from takeoff to landing. Lindbergh’s flight time was officially measured by a watch manufacturer from Saint-Imier in Switzerland’s Jura region on behalf of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). That manufacturer was Longines, a brand already well known among aviators. This was mainly due to John P. V. Heinmuller, head of the Wittnauer Company in New York, which distributed Longines watches in the United States. Heinmuller was an avid pilot himself who knew many aviators personally. He recorded and certified numerous record-setting flights in the 1920s. The Longines head office, which he visited several times, received valuable information from him about the special capabilities that pilots of that era needed from their on-board chronometers and wristwatches.