The more complicated time-measuring feature is the chronograph, which of course, isn’t just any chronograph. It has a flyback function, meaning you can stop, reset and restart the stopwatch with the press of a single button. I don’t often need a flyback function, but it sure is fun to play around with.
The rest of the movement, in traditional Blancpain fashion, is just as impressive. The Calibre F188B is in-house, of course, with a column wheel for ultra-smooth operation, beautiful but still tool-watch-appropriate finishing, and an anti-magnetic silicon balance spring.
Most enjoyable of all is the rotor, which looks like an airplane propeller and is made of 18K white gold. Is it a little silly? Sure. But who cares? It’s fun, and if I were actually dropping $20K on this watch, I would want to have as much fun with it as possible.
One thing about the movement, however, is it doesn’t hack. This fact, coupled with the lack of a running seconds hand on the dial, makes standard time-telling decidedly secondary to the chronograph function. Maybe that’s the point given the watch’s military origins, but if I had my druthers, I’d replace the 12-hour counter with a small seconds display.
The other thing I’d change about the watch is the price: I’d make it so I could afford one. The $20,500 price point and the 1-of-100 rarity of the version I tested (mine was actually the only example in the country at the time) mean I’ll never own an Air Command, which is a bummer. But that doesn’t mean I can’t give this watch the respect and admiration it absolutely deserves.
