Heuer Pilot 230.006

Heuer Pilot 230.006 c1980-85

It originally belonged to a US Army Pilot, who’d bought it from new and gave him years of reliable service. After he retired it was relegated to the back of a drawer… where it apparently sat for 10 years before finding it’s way to me through a dealer. The bezel insert was missing, but I managed to track down a replacement from ClassicHeuer.de. It also needed part of the movement replaced, so after a long time managed to source the correct parts. It features a quartz mated to a mechanical Dubois Depraz 2000 chronograph module., and ‘ticks’ twice a second. Despite it not being a true mechanical movement, it was much admired by Chuck Maddox, who thought that it was wonderful, and wrote many pleasant words about it, in fact he liked it an awful lot:

“You can keep your DDM All Silver Speedy, I’ll take one of these every time. Even the quartz models are very cool watches. The wizz wheel is very handy for a number of functions, they are very comfortable to wear, are great timekeepers, offer much of the functionality of similar Breitlings but without the glitz and with much better readability.

I feel that they were largely ignored when they were on the market and as they were likely never a large volume model, are especially scarce now that they are gone. I’d sure like to see TAG Heuer reintroduce the automatic model. I wouldn’t trade any of mine for any Triple-Date Speedy…

They are that cool…”

  – Chuck Maddox

Click here for Chuck’s extensive research into the Heuer Pilot.

This Pilot has a stepped glass, just in case you think you are seeing double in some of the pics! It also features a date magnifier bubble that is set into the actual dial. Its pretty big, at a smidgen under 43mm across. Its bracelet is integrated into the case and it very comfortable for such a big piece. These are often seen in TAG Heuer guise. It was available in all black or silver dial, like this one. The dial is lovely, and changes hue depending on the lighting conditions, and the creamy lume of the triangular hour markers are just perfect.

It features in the 1980 catalogue in the ‘Aviator’ section, which also features some of the Heuer Night Divers, but with a 60 min count down bezels, supposedly for parachuting!!

Seen in the 1980 Aviation Catalogue, 1983 French Catalogue and 1985 Catalogue on OTD.

There is also further reading on the Heuer & TAG Heuer Pilot in an article on Cal. 11.

Pilot Instruction Manual
Want to know how to actually use the slide rule? Check out the instruction manual scans courtesy of Chuck Maddox.