It goes without saying: 2020 was far from an ideal year for most of us. Looking back, however, it was also a year that brought many noteworthy watch launches despite the huge obstacles posed by the pandemic and its effects on the world economy. As we look ahead hopefully to 2021, it’s time for our annual look back at some of those timepieces, in various popular categories. Today, we showcase 2020’s most intriguing aviator-style watches.

Bell & Ross completed its Flight Instrument family ? based on the designs of cockpit instruments ? with the BR 03-92 H.U.D. (Heads Up Display), a limited edition of 999 pieces. The Heads Up Display in a plane?s cockpit is a transparent windshield that displays essential data in a digital form; the watch, housed in a 42-mm square case made of matte black ceramic, re-creates this high-tech screen on its three-layer dial. The top layer is a green-tinted sapphire crystal with four luminous brackets at the corners, representing the HUD?s line-of-sight frame. The minutes and seconds hands occupy the middle level, their central parts hidden to emulate the digital displays on the instrument panel. At the base level is the main dial, with a triangular marker to indicate the hours, and hour and minute numerals and indices on concentric scales, all glowing bright green thanks to an application of Super-LumiNova C3. More info and price here.
Bell & Ross BR 03-92 H.U.D.

For the 80th anniversary of the historic Battle of Brita...