Oris Big Crown Propilot

Oris Big Crown Propilot watch collection with original design

It is a reality that many of the world's great inventions were born out of necessity, it is even more true that they were born because of wars. That is the basis for the design of Oris Big Crown Propilot watches .

In the course of World War I, early military pilots missed a way to measure time without digging through their pockets. In this way, two solutions emerged. The first, to tie a pocket watch to the leg and the other, to fasten it to the wrist. The early wristwatches were rudimentary, mostly roughly welded wire rings to the wrist.

This concept was a good one and the watchmakers began the industrialization of a wristwatch. The coldness and darkness of the cockpits caused the design of the clocks to change and to become of luminous materials and with large Arabic numerals. Most importantly, the oversized crown arrived so that it could be manipulated without having to remove the gloves. Today they have become simply pilot watches.

Discoveries from the near past suggest that Oris created his first model in WWI. The watch that made the difference, Big Crown , arrived in 1938. Today they continue to shape the current Oris aviation series, the cradle of groundbreaking innovations, including the world's first mechanical altimeter housed in a watch with an automatic movement. Oris continues to innovate, and as the firm says, the sky is the limit.