IWC Schaffhausen introduces the Pilot’s Watch Automatic 41 Black Aces, the latest timepiece inspired by its collaborations with US Navy squadrons. The highlight of this timepiece is the fully luminous white dial.
Consisting of a solid disc of Super-LumiNova®, it emits a bright greenish light in the dark and takes night visibility to the next level. The Pilot’s Watch Automatic 41 Black Aces features a black zirconium oxide ceramic case and is powered by the IWC-manufactured 32100 calibre movement with a power reserve of 72 hours. It is available exclusively online at iwc.com.
The most striking feature of this timepiece is the fully luminous white Lumicast dial. Developed in collaboration with pilots from the “Black Aces”, the dial is the result of a complex manufacturing process.
In the first step, high-grade Super-LumiNova® pigments are mixed with a binder, cast into a circular mold, and hardened in a specially developed curing process to give the material a ceramic-like durability.
The resulting solid disc is then fixed onto the soft-iron dial blank. Finally, the dial is imprinted with black indices and numerals and the “Black Aces” patch, resembling the ace of spades from a card deck. In dark chamber tests, the dial emitted a bright greenish light for more than 23 hours, taking legibility and night visibility to a whole new level.
Super-LumiNova® is a high-tech ceramic compound that behaves like a light storage battery. Light energy absorbed from sunlight or artificial light causes the electrons in the material to enter a higher energy state, where this energy is stored.
When the electrons return to their normal state, they emit the absorbed energy as visible light, making the material glow in the dark. The process of absorbing and releasing light energy can be repeated an infinite number of times without ever causing the material to age or diminishing its light storage capacity.