Good afternoon to all you real pilots here in this forum.
Forum members such as MuradK,Chogy,X-Man and any other pilots out there:
Can you please let us know what kind of accessories did you use while flying? I am primarily referring to the make of watches and sunglasses. Were these issued by your air force or did you buy them yourself?
In the military, they issed what are called "hack watches." These are your basic (but rugged) mechanical wind-up watch. No batteries = works forever. For most purposes, these are plenty accurate.
For things like bombs-on-target, the most common used mechanism is the clock in the jet, coordinated to UTC (Zulu time) via GPS signals. These are dead-accurate.
Sunglasses - mil issue, and rarely worn, as the visor was optically better and preferable. Those that needed corrective lenses used the military glasses, at least in the U.S.
We trained ourselves to do without any tinting, though, as the tint can cut light and reduce visual acuity. But that's all military stuff.
When you see images of pilots in ads and movies, they are usually wearing Breitling type watches and Ray-Ban shades. How true is this image?
In the civilian world, not very. Ray Ban Aviators are very good glasses, but despite this, they've become kind of a cliche. And watches - really, the need for a fancy watch no longer exists. 50 years ago, yes, when much of navigation and instrument procedures were based on a plain clock or watch, but that has been superceded with modern equipment, like GPS.
The reality is that experienced commercial pilots tend to avoid that image. I have no watch, and wear $10 sunglasses, because they are easy to lose or break. You definitely don't want to be a walking pilot cliche!
All I can really add is that whatever sunglasses you buy, be sure they are not polarized. Polarized lenses interfere with modern glass cockpit displays, and can cause some really funky visual oddities with heated windows or polycarbonate.
HTH and good luck if you pursue aviation.
