Metal from a Lockheed SR-71 aircraft, a former military reconnaissance plane nicknamed Blackbird, is featured in a new version of Urwerk’s Electro Mechanical Control watch, scheduled to debut Aug. 21.
The Swiss brand said the plane’s strategic purpose matched that of the timepiece: technical, user-powered precision.
The original version of the watch, a mix of mechanical timepiece and a smartwatch known as the EMC, was introduced in 2013. It was promoted as extremely precise, thanks to a crank on its side that allowed the wearer to control its timekeeping mechanism.
“The EMC is more like a control board for a movement,” said Martin Frei, Urwerk’s artistic director and one of its founders. “In this sense, it’s really like the cockpit for the owner of the watch, who gets involved in the process of maintaining the machine.”
The crank handle and screw-down bezel of each Urwerk SR-71 “Blackbird” watch has been made from a section of a plane that crashed in western Texas in June 1970. The metal is a titanium alloy, mixed with metals such as vanadium and iron. (The rest of the watch, which is powered by an in-house movement, is titanium and steel.)
To obtain the airplane parts, Urwerk partnered with Roman Sperl, an aerospace engineer, and Jason Sarkoyan, a watch designer and space travel enthusiast, who are the founders of Dreamland, a company that supplies aerospace parts. Mr. Frei got to know them through social media early in the Covid-19 pandemic, bonding over a shared passion for the SR-71 Blackbird. (Dr. Sperl has an Instagram account dedicated to the plane.)
As the idea of collaborating began to jell, Dr. Sperl said, “I wanted to bring in some secret ingredient into a potential watch that we would be doing together, and it was that specific Blackbird titanium.”
The timepiece, which is 47.55 millimeters by 49.57 millimeters, is a limited edition of 10 pieces, each at 150,000 Swiss francs ($168,700). Orders will be taken by Urwerk retailers; the brand is carried by stores such as Cellini and Westime in the United States and the Hour Glass in Singapore.
Metal from the Blackbird has been used in other timepieces. Zelos Watches, for example, created an automatic chronograph with a dial made from a plane’s titanium, complete with scratches and leftover paint. There also is a Luminox model, and one from REC Watches.
The plane’s importance in aviation history seems to be the attraction: Built by Lockheed, it flew from the 1960s until the 1990s, discreetly gathering surveillance information for the U.S. Air Force before satellites and drones became commonplace.
“The plane is really unique in a lot of different ways,” said Michael Hankins, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
“It was the first airplane where they were trying to reduce the radar detectability,” he said, adding that the design and the shielding of some key parts were efforts to absorb radar signals.
Also, Mr. Hankins noted, “It’s still to this day the fastest crewed jet airplane ever.”
Dr. Sperl and Mr. Sarkoyan purchased the metal used in the Urwerk watches from a private dealer in Arizona.
They bought the plane’s reinforced rubber tires, too, which should come in handy.
“We were thinking of using the wheels in the future for watch bands,” Dr. Sperl said.
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