Earlier this year we covered the new IWC Big Pilot?s Heritage Watch, a special-edition piece of IWC?s Big Pilot Watch meant to harken back to the original designs of the B-Uhr (Beobachtungs-Uhren, or observation watch) style first developed in 1940s Germany. However, of the five original manufacturers who produced the B-Uhr design more than 77 years ago ? other than IWC ? only Stowa and Laco have also continued to produce the style for the modern market. Coincidentally, 2017 marks 90 years of uninterrupted production for Stowa, and to commemorate this accomplishment the German brand has released 13 new historically inspired pilots’ models, limited to 90 pieces each, many of which draw direct influence from those original B-Uhr designs.
These watches includes the Flieger Klassik 40 Baumuster B (Flieger is German for “pilot”). This watch is named for the Baumuster B design of the B-Uhr watches (pictured above), known for its complex dial with a smaller inner ring denoting the hour from 1 o?clock to 12 o’clock and a larger outer ring displaying minutes from 5 to 55. The Baumuster B design ? first seen in 1942, two years after Stowa?s first production of the original and simpler Baumuster A (pictured below) ? is more often associated with modern pilot watches and is commonly seen in today’s homage designs, notwithstanding Stowa?s latest anniversary collection.

This take on the style is a 40-mm steel-cased piece with an onion crown. It?s a watch t...