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Showing 1 of 10 reviews about:
704573d
13
Sep 5, 2019
checkVerified Buyer
It grows on you
When I read the product blurb up top I saw "flight watch", so I thought it would be designed to be legible in dim environments, which I imagine a cockpit to be half the time, and have gas tubes or some such on the watch hands to accommodate said legibility.
Well the hands DO have gas tubes or something, because they did glow very dimly, but only after exposing to sunlight for quite a while, 99% of the time nothing glowed.
I don't know how tough this glass is compared to my other Citizen watch, which costs more than double this (and has nigh on unscratchable glass, I have accidentally scraped that watch face along a wall while jumping between holds while rock climbing, still no scratches, while the body is scratched and gouged to hell). This watch's glass, does not look like it will hold up to the amount of abuse the more expensive one does, and the glass also doesn't sit flush against the side of the dial, it sits up about a millimetre, so gouges on that little edge might show up later as well if you're not careful.
The black finish on the watch also looks like it might scratch off later, not too sure on this.
The watch comes with a huge amount of links that you can take off, I am skinny and have narrow wrists so I took off four of them, but with them all on I could nearly wear them around my elbow. Good for people with big arms/wrists.
The main seconds hand doesn't move during normal operation which annoyed me at first, always sitting at the 12 o'clock position. It only moves during stop watch operation which is also quite easy to understand.
The actual seconds hand (in a separate smaller dial) and the two small hour dials are hard to read as well.
I wouldn't actually recommend this for pilots flying night routes XD, looks boss while wearing a suit though!
saturnphive
8
Jan 29, 2020
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704573dI've owned the Citizen Nighthawk Pilot Watch for about 10 years and I'm not sure this review is actually reviewing the Citizen watch that is for sale and/or pictured.
(Although upon extremely close study, this watch is the Nighthawk, but not called the Nighthawk - it has the nighthawk logo on the crown and next to the date window, and the exact same appearance, but it lacks the "Nighthawk" badging that would normally appear above the "WR 200" label . For me it makes that space seem a little empty. The indices for the hours are also fully lumed on the Nighthawk, whereas here they have only a dot of lume near the outer ring.
So to address just a couple of the issues in the review above:
First issue from 704573d - he says the seconds hands in a separate smaller dial - dead giveaway. This is a review for a different watch. There are no subdials on this watch. And the seconds hand ticks constantly. It is quartz so it ticks rather than runs.
Second. Lume - Again motoaddic below says that there is no lume - "it woudl be nice to have," and 704573d says they have "glass tubes or something." So..okay this watch has lumed hands and lumed hour indicators. As far as the glass tubes, sure that is a thing, but not on this watch. Tritium tubes are used by Ball, (high end) LumiVox (midrange) and Traser/Smith&Wesson/carnival (low end) watches, among a few others, Deep Blue, Aragon... They glow for 25 years at a very slowly declining rate. They are always on and need no "charge" from the sunlight. They're not quite as bright as glow paint just after it comes in from the sun, but after 10 mintues, the tubes are brighter and stay on all night long. Neither the Citizen pictured here, nor any Citizen watch that I'm aware of, use tritium tubes.
The watch I own, which is the twin of this one, uses applied indicies filled with BGW9 lume, which glows Ice blue and very brightly even a modest few moments in the sunlight. A solid charge will last several hours. (Or the diver trick is to blast it with your flashlight with your eyes closed for a second) The Minute and Second hand are lumed, the seconds hand is not, so do not use it for diving.
HOWEVER - there are differences between this watch and the actual Nighthawk. This one doesn't have the badgeing, AND the applied appear to only contain a small dot of lume at the extreme distal end, rather than the whole stick being filled. That is a cost saving measure. So you have to wonder what other corners were cut with the amount of glow-fill they used in the hands and the 6 and 12.
Bracelet: someone below also remarks they prefer "Shiny" to polished. I think they are confusing "polished" with "Brushed". Brushed is the soft, non-reflective appearance as seen on the case of this watch. "Polished" refers to a mirror finish as stainless steel can accommodate both. This watch bracelet should have both. The outer links are brushed, and the inner links have a polished top. Its a really dandy looking bracelet in my opinion, and tapers nicely so its very comfortable on the underside of your wrist.
Finally, the Black PVD - the nighthawk was available in a black pvd coated case and bracelet, I'm not sure the "pilot's watch" is though, there certainly aren't pictures of it.
Not my intention to nitpick, I believe the author of the review I'm writing on didn't even mean this watch, so cannot be blamed for any errors.
Listen, if this IS the Nighthawk, there's a reason that I've owned it for 10 years and cycled through probably 30 other watches in that time. My wife bought it for me. Ha ha. No actually that's true but I picked it out and its just a great watch. Really about as good as it gets in a quartz modern day "Aviator" style watch. Just be wary that this is looking a bit like a Nighthawk Tribute watch, which will necessarily fall a bit shy of the original.
You can find a ton of reviews on the Citizen EcoDrive Nighthawk on the web- it was a VERY influential watch in the early 2000s and remains extremely popular and good-looking ;) Kinda want to go home and put mine on now!
704573d
13
Jan 30, 2020
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saturnphive
(Edited)
saturnphive
8
Jan 30, 2020
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704573dCrazy - you know I bet they just parsed out several of the keywords and grabbed yours to pad the page. Reviews are super important for online buying. That nighthawk you got looks pretty nice, I'd love to get a chrono one of these days. - And yeah from what I understand stalking them online, usually the central seconds hand is only used for the chrono function so you can see the fractional seconds, while a subdial shows the running seconds on time. It would be neat if you could flip a switch and the central seconds would run though. I'm a lume nut though so I can't cotton a watch I can't see at night.
I'm actually wearing my Nighthawk right now - just had the urge after seeing it on here! Have a good one!
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