Victorinox Air Pro Automatic Review

Today we are going to be taking a look at a brand I am very familiar with, but not so much for their watches. Growing up as a child on the 1980s, Swiss Army Knives were a badge of honor between my friends and I. Not only was it pretty much expected to own a Swiss Army Knife, but it was actually frowned upon if you didn't have more than one. Also there was the ever growing competition between us to see who could get the Swiss Army Knife that had the most functions built into it. This would end up with us having nearly one inch thick knives that we would never really use for anything.

The company behind the Swiss Army Knife is Victorinox and the brand doesn't only produce knives, but they create a wide variety of products including watches. Today we're going to be looking at one of their newest timepieces, but before we get more into that watch, let's first go over the history of the brand.



Victorinox was founded by Karl Elsener in 1884 in Ibach-Schwyz, Switzerland. The company was setup as a cutlery workshop which aimed to produce compact and versatile watches for Swiss soldiers. The "Soldier's Knife" was produced in 1891 and later followed up by the "Officer's and Sports Knife" in 1897. This second knife featured a patented mechanism that allowed the knife to have tools on both side of the handle and laid the foundation for the Swiss Army Knife.

In 1921 the company started using the name Victorinox, which combined Elsener's mother's name, Victoria, with the term "inox", which is a term used for stainless steel. Soon the brand's reputation for quality and durability grew and the Swiss Army Knife became associated with Swiss craftsmanship. The 1930s brought electric and automated machinery to the Victorinox factory, allowing the brand greatly up their production numbers.



During World War II, Victorinox and their competitor Wenger both produced Swiss Army Knives. Although only Victorinox knives could be called "Original", while Wenger knives were called "Genuine" Swiss Army Knives. This dual supplier system of Swiss Army Knives continued until 2005, when Victorinox acquired Wenger.

Following the war, American servicemen started bringing back "Offiziersmesser" (Officer's Knife) back home as souvenirs. These knives became extremely popular and started to just be referred to as "Swiss Army Knives", since the German was hard to pronounce. The 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s saw tremendous growth for the company and the brand expanded into more product lines including high-quality kitchen cutlery.

A century after Victorinox was founded, the brand started to look at adding watches to their offerings. In 1989 the "Swiss Army" brand of watches was launched and looked to build upon the brand's reputation of being reliable and robust. These new watches were produced in the heart of Swiss watchmaking in Biel, Switzerland.



In 1999, Victorinox Watch SA was established in the Swiss Jura region showing the increased commitment the brand had to watchmaking. In 2002, Victorinox became the sole shareholder of its American distribution partner, Swiss Army Brands, which led to the launch of the "Victorinox Swiss Army" brand for watches. As demand for watches increased, Victorinox opened a new watch production facility in Porrentruy, Switzerland.

Today Victorinox is a major player in the Swiss watch industry and offers an extensive collection of watches to meet most tastes. The I.N.O.X. is a series of battle ready timepieces, while the AirBoss is a collection of more sophisticated watches. Victorinox also offers sports, dive and pilot's watches as well.

Initial Thoughts

Today we're going to be looking at the newest collection of pilot's watches from Victorinox in the Air Pro Automatic series. When the watch arrived, the first thing I noticed was the complexity of the dial. The black dial of the Air Pro is covered with a host of text, hands and markers. At first, or to the untrained eye, the dial could look a bit overwhelming. In truth the dial is rather straight forward and contains just enough information to accurately track three time zones. Being a pilot's watch, having an additional or two additional time zones is a huge plus. The look of the dial also reminds me of instrumentation you'd find in a cockpit.



The second thing I noticed about the Air Pro during my initial time with the watch was its excellent rubber strap. From first glance the strap looks pretty normal, being done in black with some vertical ribbing. Taking a closer look at the strap shows how that the strap is extremely supply and flexible, but it also has a little extra detail that helps it support the hefty watch head. About a third of each side of the strap is re-enforced with an additional yellow rubber piece that adds crucial strength to the strap. These rubber pieces also add grip to the inside of the strap and just look cool, contrasting nicely with the jet black rest of the strap.

The last thing I took note of during my first time with the Victorinox Air Pro is all the small details on the case. On the left hand side of the case is a small engraving of "Stainless Steel AISI 316L" referring to the case being made of low carbon, austenitic stainless steel. With Victorinox's long history with steel, it's a nice touch to see the exact type of steel used on the watch printed on the case. The next little detail is depth rating of 200m / 600ft engraved on the side of the bezel right above the screw down crown. The last small touch was what Victorinox did with the display case back. Printed on the sapphire of the display back is an image of the traditional Swiss Army Knife with all of its components opened up.



Technical Specifications

Now that we've gone over both the history of Victorinox as well as my initial impressions of the Air Pro Automatic, let's now take a look at the technical specifications of the watch. The Air Pro is crafted out of 316L stainless steel and has a case diameter of 43.6 mm and a lug to lug length of 53.4 mm. On our scale the watch weighed in at 132 grams on the rubber strap and deployant clasp. At its thickest point the Air Pro is 12.3 mm tall.

The Air Pro used a slightly raised flat sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating applied to it. Underneath the sapphire is the jet black dial which has a repeating concentric circle design to it. Around the outside of the dial is a 24 hour ring that is controlled by the upper crown at 2 o'clock. Evening hours are printed in yellow, white daytime hours are done in white underlined in yellow. Moving in are the major cities from each time zone printed in white.



The Air Pro uses applied bar hour markers that are filled with Super-LumiNova which glow green in low lighting, with 12 o'clock replaced by the Victorinox logo and 3 and 9 being Arabic numerals. There are four centrally mounted hands on the Air Pro being the hour, minute, seconds and GMT hands. The hour and minute hands are fence post style and are partially skeletonized with matching lumed tips to the hour markers. The seconds hand has a bar counter balance and arrow tip, also both covered in matching Super-LumiNova. The GMT hand is fully skeletonized with the arrow tip being outlined in yellow.

Moving more inward on the dial has another 24 hour scale with the Arabic number hours being printed in white and yellow to mirror the rotating 24 hour ring. Victorinox branding is found at 12 o'clock with "GMT Automatic" found at 9. At 6 o'clock you have Swiss Air Force logo along with Swiss Made. Popular on Pilot's watches is a date window with three dates exposed. This is done so that if the minute hand is covering the date window, you can still make out the current date by the other two displayed dates. This is the style of date window on the Air Pro, with this version having a black background that matches the dial color.



Moving past the dial is the fixed black bezel featuring a 60 minute scale. 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 are represented by an Arabic numeral in white that is recessed. Each five minute period is marked with a white dot and the dot at 12 o'clock has a yellow triangle background. The dot at 12 is also lumed. As mentioned earlier, there is an engraving for the water resistance found on the side of the bezel right above the screw down crown.

The case on the Victorinox Air Pro is completely brushed in finish with just the chamfers being polished. Looking at the profile of the case you can see the slightest of curves to the lugs to help form to your wrist. On the left hand side of the case between 7 and 8 o'clock is a small engraving signaling what grade of stainless steel is used on the case, in this case being AISI 316L stainless steel.

The right hand side of the Air Pro contains two crowns, one for the 24 hour ring and the other for the time functions. The crown at 2 o'clock does not screw down and bi-directionally turns the 24 hour ring on the outside of the dial. The crown at 4 o'clock does screw down and aids with the 200 meters of water resistance. Un-screwing the crown lets you manually wind the automatic movement. Pulling the crown out to position one lets your advance the GMT hand by turning the crown away from you and changing the date by turning it towards you. Pulling the crown all the way out to position two stops the seconds hand and lets you set the date. Pushing the crown back in causes no jump in the minutes hand and getting the crown to catch to screw back in requires no extra effort.



Flipping the watch over shows off the screw down case back with important information about the watch engraved around the outside bezel. The Air Pro features a sapphire crystal display window with an image of the iconic Swiss Army Knife engraved on top of it. Underneath beats the Swiss made Sellita SW330-2 automatic movement with 56 hours of power reserve that beats away at 28,800 vph (4Hz). The movement is topped by a Victorinox Swiss Army branded rotor. On our timegrapher the movement showed an accuracy of +5 seconds per day when averaged out over several positions. The functions of the movement are hours, minutes, seconds, date and GMT. The Air Pro is also ISO certified for both shock and water resistance.

The Victorinox Air Pro has a lug width of 21 mm and comes on a black rubber strap that has a slight taper down to the brushed stainless steel deployant clasp featuring the Victorinox logo. The clasp requires two pushers to be depressed to release the strap. The black rubber strap has a vertical ribbed pattern on the top of the strap and underneath is smooth. Near the lugs, each strap has an added yellow piece of rubber that is textured and also adds strength to the comfortable and supple strap. The strap also features a quick release system that makes strap changes quick and easy. 21 mm is a bit of a unique strap width, so finding aftermarket straps might be a bit harder than finding 20 or 22 mm straps.



On The Wrist

The Air Pro is a large watch and wears as such. On my 7.25 inch wrist with a 55 mm flat area the watch pretty much covered up my entire wrist. The Air Pro actually looks correct and has no overhang since the lug to lug is 53.4 mm. I typically prefer my personal watches to be in the 50 to 54 mm lug to lug length, so the Air Pro fits my tastes nicely. The watch is only 12.3 mm tall and looks remarkably proportionate when on the wrist.

Being crafted out of stainless steel and having a large case makes the Victorinox Air Pro a bit hefty. On the rubber strap the watch weighs in at 132 grams, which isn't exactly heavy, but more than my preferred 100 gram weight. If the Air Pro was crafted from titanium, the weight would probably have been right at 100 grams. I know this is a new series for Victorinox and the brand has a long history with steel, so maybe in the future we'll see a titanium variant. The Air Pro never disappeared on the wrist and made itself known, but it also never was a chore to wear or caused any wrist fatigue. Most collectors prefer this kind of heft to their watches, equating them with quality and luxury, but I personally prefer lightweight case materials like titanium, carbon and ceramic.



The rubber strap is nice and robust and keeps the watch nice and square on my wrist, never favoring one side over the other or feeling top heavy. I believe the thick yellow rubber inserts on the bottom side of the strap do wonders keeping the watch in place. I also applaud Victorinox for using a deployant clasp over a pin buckle on the Air Pro. Larger watches with some weight can sometimes have the tendency to try to dive bomb off of your wrist when putting them on with a pin buckle, the deployant just adds a nice layer of security.

To test the legibility of a watch I use a simple test where I try to tell how hard it is to tell the time at just a glance while driving. In this test dive watches with their large high contrast dials and hands do the best, while skeleton and complicated watches do the worst. I was a bit concerned about how the Air Pro would do on this test since the dial is rather complex with a ton of markings to decipher. In reality the large white hands contrast nicely with the black dial and the usage of some Arabic hour markers helps you get your bearings fairly fast, meaning the Air Pro actually did quite well on my legibility test. There is a decent amount of lume on the dial of the watch, so low light time telling wasn't too much of an issue either.



The Victorinox Air Pro went well with my typical dress of a black t-shirt, shorts and sneakers since the watch is mostly black. I wore the Air Pro both out and about on normal everyday errands as well as out to dinner and drinks. The watch was more than comfortable enough and even during longer times of wear was a pleasure on wrist. The watch would probably fit fairly well in everyday wear as long as you have a pretty casual lifestyle as well. I would have to say that the watch really didn't get noticed much on wrist though. I guess since the watch really doesn't have a crazy design and doesn't use any over the top colors it's pretty subtle and goes under the radar. The friends I did show the watch to really liked the cockpit instrumentation inspired dial and nod to the Swiss Army Knife on the case back. They were all rather surprised by the price of the watch as well.

Value and Position in the Market

Speaking of price, the Victorinox Air Pro Automatic retails for $1,700. For that price you're getting a large and expertly crafted stainless steel case housing a very accurate and durable Swiss made Sellita movement. You also get the ability to track three timezones and an interesting internal rotating 24 hour ring. The Air Pro also comes from a very storied and respected brand in Victorinox. Now is the time in the review to look at other watches with similar specifications and features to the Air Pro and see how it fairs value wise.



Up first we have the 105 St Sa UTC from Sinn which has a 41 mm case crafted out of stainless steel. The Sinn has a much more straightforward dial and features a GMT function. The watch is powered by the Sellita SW330-2 like the Victorinox and has the same 200 meters of water resistance as well. The 105 St Sa UTC is a bit more expensive than the Air Pro at $2,350.

Moving on is the Spirit Zulu Time from Longines which has a 42 mm case crafted out of stainless steel. The watch has a more straight forward dial like the Sinn and has a GMT function. The watch is powered by an ETA movement and has 72 hours of power reserve. The Spirit Zulu Time only has 100 meters of water resistance, half that of the Sinn and Victorinox. The Spirit Zulu Time is much more expensive than the Air Pro at $3,450.

Next up is the Avenger Automatic GMT 44 by Breitling which has a 44 mm case made out of stainless steel. The Avenger once again has a more reserved dial and features a GMT complication. The Avenger is powered by an ETA based movement with only 42 hours of power reserve, but does have 300 meters of water resistance. The Avenger is much more expensive than the Air Pro at $5,550.



Finally we have the Pilot's Watch Timezoner Edition Le Petit Prince from IWC which has a stainless steel case that is 46 mm in diameter. The Timezoner has the Big Pilot's case and crown and features a world time complication. The Timezoner is powered by an in-house IWC movement and has 60 hours of power reserve. The Timezoner only has 60 meters of water resistance compared to the 200 meters found on the Air Pro. The Timezoner is much more expensive than the Air Pro at $14,200.

Looking at these above four watches, you can see that the Victorinox Air Pro is a great value. It offers similar if not better specs than the other pilot's watches at a much lower price. The dial and dual crown case of the Air Pro also make it stick out more than the more buttoned down traditional GMT watches from Sinn, Longines and Breitling. The Timezoner also has a very distinct look, but its price really puts it in a different category of watch. Overall, for what you're getting with the Air Pro it's hard to not justify its asking price.



Closing Thoughts

So in the end, is the Victorinox Air Pro Automatic for me? In all honesty, the Air Pro has two major things going against it personally for me. I tend to prefer watches that are large, but also lightweight. Being crafted out of stainless steel instantly makes the watch a bit too heavy for my personal preferences. Secondly, I've never been a big fan of the GMT and multiple time zone complications. I typically don't travel out of our time zone too often and don't have much use for the function. I know the GMT function along with the chronograph are two of the most popular complications amongst collectors, but they both really don't do much for me.

I do really like the sizing of the watch and that Victorinox was able to keep the thickness of the watch in check as well. The cockpit inspired dial is also perfectly done and really reminds me of what you'd see as a pilot. A two crown pilot's watch is rather refreshing and not something you see every day as well. For being larger, the Air Pro also wears surprising well. I'm also a big fan of the little hidden details Victorinox added to the watch such as the nod to the Swiss Army Knife on the case back and water resistance and case materials engraved into the side of the watch.

Would I think recommend the Air Pro to somebody looking for a larger pilot's watch with the ability to track multiple time zones? For the most part I would have no hesitation recommending the Air Pro to that buyer. They would need to enjoy large watches and even though I love the lug to lug length of the watch, it might be a bit too long for some. The Air Pro is running on a very accurate Sellita made movement that should be able to be serviced by just about any local watchmaker as well. Although the dial looks busy, it is very easy to decipher once you get a lay of the land and adds the ability to track three time zones. The rubber strap and deployant clasp are excellent as well, and keep the watch a pleasure on the wrist for hours. Victorinox adding 200 meters of water resistance to a pilot's watch is pretty rare and having the added peace of mind of having a screw down crown is nice. Finally the Air Pro is an extremely good value and offers a ton for its asking price. I would highly recommend that somebody looking for this type of watch take a closer look at the Victorinox Air Pro Automatic.



I'd really like to thank Victorinox for sending us the Air Pro Automatic to review and it served as a great introduction to a brand that I've known for most of my life but had never experienced their watches first hand. The Air Pro is a great all around pilot's watch and the build quality is up there with much more expensive Swiss made watches. I'd really love to get some more watches from Victorinox in for review over the next few months as well.

For more information about the Air Pro Automatic please visit : Victorinox

Technical Specifications

Reference Number: 242005

Retail Price: $1,700

Case Size: 43.6 mm

Lug to Lug: 53.4 mm

Thickness: 12.3 mm

Weight: 132 grams

Case Material: 316L Stainless Steel

Bezel: 316L Stainless Steel

Strap: Black Rubber Strap with Stainless Steel Deployant Clasp

Movement: Swiss Made Sellita SW330-2 Automatic Movement

Functions: Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Date and GMT

Power Reserve: 56 Hours

Water Resistance: 200 Meters