The current Skyhawk Titanium model is JR3060-59F. I have been struggling with the choice of watches for a while. I don’t want a piece of expensive jewelry that have to be well taken care of. It have to be an everyday utility tool, but it have to be respectable for occasions and approved by my wife. With a $500 price tag, the Skyhawk have to be respectable for my budget.

I want digital readout, otherwise you need to take a very close look to get the exact minute. Also, digital readout is only practical for chronographs and timers. But digital readout doesn’t look good, including hybrid ones. The digital display of the Skyhawk is rather nice, split into two wing shaped windows with rounded corners and curves. From afar, they look like two more analog dials in additional to the 4 analog dials. As I grow more mature, the need for an analog dial become a necessity, so I can read the time without effort.

I don’t want batteries. I don’t need a watch to last a life time, but when it’s time to change batteries, there’s always compelling reasons to get a new watch - new styling, cheaper technology, new technology, longer lasting battery, hard to get old batteries. The only reason I don’t want to get a new one is that I grow attached to the watch. The other extreme is to go for a pure analog watch. It’s expensive for a good one but it can last a life time, even pass it down generations, which justifies the price. I do have an old Omega Seamaster from my father, which is now a collector’s item. But I rather not do it to my son. It lost minutes per day nowadays. I have to wind a lot to keep it going. The now antique gold bracelet need to be carefully worn. It has a date and I have to set it every other month, which is a big hassle without digital technology. The last time I looked it’s worth a few Skyhawks, so I don’t think it’s worth all the trouble.

I was never keen on solar as it’s just a battery of a different kind. I also had bad memories of the early solar calculators. I looked at kinematic watches but to my disappointment, it wasn’t winding by motion of your hand. It’s electricity generation and it’s just another battery watch - a rechargeable battery. Rumor has it that it wasn’t even a good rechargeable battery. It last a bit longer than a battery and you still have to replace it, which is a bigger task than replacing a battery. Back to solar watch. If I have to get a solar watch, I would rather have a Citizen. Market share drives research drives technology, the side effect is that it’s also cheap with massive production scale. The Eco-drive technology is also impressive. Fully charges in a few minutes of sunlight. Can charge in any lighting conditions. For Californian architecture, it means that you can drop the watch anywhere in the house - there are more windows than enough to catch the sunlight. If not the reflection of the sunlight will charge the watch. It also keeps the charge for 4 years if you don’t use it.

I don’t know how long the rechargeable battery will last. But it has to be more than 5 years that a normal battery can easily last. I heard that some solar watches last up to 15 years. But it doesn’t matter a lot. If I grew attached to my Skyhawk, I can proudly present it to a citizen service center to replace the battery. I tried to replace the battery of my 1st budget digital watch years ago, when the service guy had a strange look in his eyes.

I was tempted to go for those network watches. They are just a big digital display. The network is like a cellular network, which broadcast the exact time, and a lot of other things. You get the temperature for free and you have to subscribe for the other things. The entry level ones are big fat and ugly. The better looking ones cost about $300. I was almost willing to give up an analog dial to gain more functionality. But then I thought I can always take out my cell phone to do all those things and more. So I decided that my watch should do everything about time and time only.

You don’t buy a Citizen for it’s designer looks. It’s not a classic as a Rolex, it’s not trendy as a Swatch. It’s not once popular as a G-shock. It’s not an expensive big sports watch. But don’t you think that many watches look alike? Complicated sport watches with lots of dials become a classic look, to go with sports cars. The Skyhawk is designed to pick up these styling cues and did it rather respectfully, including the digital panels and the buttons. It looks special and not flashy at the same time. I went for it as it has a lot more practical functions compared to expensive watches. I have some reservations about the dial for pilots to calculate fuel consumption. Certainly it’s a gimmick to distinguish itself. But after I tried it on my waist, I am happy to say that the dial looks good, special, and it’s much much more practical to many people just as I suspected.

I got the watch from eBay, from an authorized Citizen dealer as claimed. The watch comes in a Citizen box like a cube, in dull green, to go with the Eco-drive theme. Inside the box is a dull green cylinder box in which the watch is kept. Attached to the watch bracelet is the original price tag at $500. Beside the cylinder is a sealed package with a mini CD, a user manual, and a warranty certificate. The seal packaged is carefully slit opened. On the warranty certificate, there is an entry for the dealer details. But it doesn’t matter, as the certificate also said that the information is not required.

I gave up on several bids as I watched the price shoots up above the price that I can get from some other online stores. I happened to win this watch beating the other online stores by about $10, not enough to compensate my time already spent. And that an online store with web presence is arguably better than a seller.

The watch is brand new as far as I can tell. Once taken out of the box, the watch returns from power save mode to normal mode. All the hands in all the dials return to their normal position in about 15 sec(?), very impressive to watch.

The CD contains the manual and interactive instructions for the setting and the usage of the main functions. The software manual has larger fonts then the printed manual, but the diagrams are not as sharp. The interactive instructions are rather tedious to watch, but useful if you don’t have a clue.

I opted for titanium for it’s light weight. The bracelet is light but the base is still rather heavy. I’m a fan of wafer thin watches with leather strips. I can accept the weight for the many functions packed in, and the sports look. I’m sure many expensive designer sport watches are bigger and heavier. I like the grey brushed look. I still can’t get use to flashy gold or steel bracelets, when the watch itself isn’t that expensive. The dull grey also complements my silver car and the grey interior. Titanium is supposed to be easier to scratch but that doesn’t bother me a lot. For the base dial, there aren’t many surface to leave a scratch mark on the titanium. For the bracelet, the dull grey brushed color helps to dilute any scratch marks. And if the mark looks really bad, you can always get a new section of the bracelet. For serious sports I wouldn’t wear a bracelet watch. And a battle scar or two just get me more attached to my watch. I liked the modern style bracelet rather than the classic chained like bracelet.

The fuel consumption dial is just a circular slide rule. The markings are very fine and hence good looking. The flight specific words make it interesting. The dial is thin but not difficult to grasp and turn. I don’t know what is a slide rule and I never used one before. But I know that I can use it for multiplication and divisions. And I learnt it in no time. A very practical use is for exchange rate calculations. When the dial is set to the exchange rate, you can use it for the entire trip without setting the dial again. Since it’s a pure look up operation, it’s faster than taking out a calculator and entering the digits. Digital watches and cell phones are also no matches for it’s speed, when you have to press a few buttons to get to the calculator mode.

I thought of the Sailhawk without the slide rule but with other sailing specific features. But Skyhawk turned out to be the right choice. The slide rule is engraved while the markings in the Sailhawk seemed to be printed in comparison. Every function in the Skyhawk is useful to me, not often, but at least when I am tourist.

The crystal (?) may act as a lens to concentrate the light energy. The crystal is rather reflective and not easer to see at all angles. But the waist is good at adjusting the watch to the optimum angle without effort. Also, the analog arms are easy to see no matter what. For the small dials and the digital panel, you have to look at them at close distance anyway.

The face is basically black and white with light green on white to make it easier to see in dim conditions. The sec hand is yellow. The light green doesn’t glow in the dark, at least not a lot out of the box. The small dials and the digital panel has a fine metallic outline that is rather nice. There is no torch built into the watch.

There are 3 small round dials. One is for UTC time (same as GMT), with a 24 hour clock hand and a minute hand. One is a 24 hour clock just to display the hour of the main analog clock. The other dial indicates what mode the watch is in. All 3 are rather redundant in some sense or another. But if you don’t want a cheap watch, you have to bear with it. But if you have 3 dials to display something, the chosen functions are very useful for pilots and travelers.

There are only three buttons as in a classic divers’s watch. The middle crown selects the mode - normal time, calender, 3 alarms, chronograph, timer, and arbitrary time zone setting. When taken out from it’s normal position, the crown adjusts the numbers. The two buttons selects the time zone of the digital display. They also selects the sec or min to be adjusted, and controls the timer and chronograph.

One of the digital panel displays the time zone of major cities and airports, and also the amount of charge. 3 bar is fully charged, and you need to expose the watch to light for 1 bar. Being in California, my watch always has 3 bars since out of the box, but 2 bar is normal according to the manual. The other digital panel displays the time and date. Note that perpetual calendar means about 99 years without adjustment, not permanent. The alarms, timer, and chronograph are all digital only.

Time and date is set digitally. Of course you just set any one time zone and the others will be synchronized automatically, including the analog dial. The digital panel can display any one time zone, and the analog main dial can also display any one zone. The digital and analog zone can be switched by pressing both buttons together. The time zones are preprogrammed with daylight saving time settings. You can keep a short list of favorite time zones to scroll around instead of keeping the whole list. You can also set up one custom time zone with arbitrary time difference.

The Skyhawk is 100 m water resistance, that means good enough for swimming.

If you get it online, remember to add about $8 if you need to adjust the length of the bracelet in a local watch shop.

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