THE SKYHAWK (CONTINUED - PAGE 4 OF 6)
The deployant clasp works particularly well...now
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THE SKYHAWK (CONTINUED - PAGE 4 OF 6)
The deployant clasp works particularly well...now |
 The new Australian version has a black inner bezel and knurled crown. The RRP is now AUS$950! (US$475) |
Living with the Skyhawk THE FIRST THING I had to do was size the bracelet. It's not quite as straightforward with the Skyhawk as it is with some other watches, because although simple pushpins are used, they are retained by a tiny 'C' section tube inside the middle link. It's very easy to lose these when removing or adding links, so unless you know what you're doing it's best to let a professional do it for you. With the onset of warmer weather my wrist expanded, and I soon found myself running out of adjustment as there's only three adjusting holes in the clasp itself. "No problem," I thought, "I'll add another link." Which I duly did, and then moved the springbar of the clasp into the 'tightest' hole. And that is where I ran into a problem. For when the springbar is in that position, the pressed metal part of the clasp will not fit over the second-to-last link. In other words, you can't close the bracelet. And I would call that a design fault.  But my trusty watchmaker came to the rescue. He ever so gently filed away the shoulders of the offending link, and did such a good job you'd swear it was manufactured like that. Which it should have been. You can see the filed link (arrowed) in the photo above. IN DAYLIGHT the visibility of the analogue hands and hour markers is good although marred by frequent reflections, which however can generally be obviated by tilting the watch slightly. As mentioned the digital displays are small, and even though the digits themselves are clear, good eyesight (or reading glasses) is needed to decipher them. In poor light the main hands show up OK (just), but the digital displays are hard to see. There is no backlight for them in this model; the newest versions of the Navihawk do have an EL (electroluminescent) button to illuminate the displays for 3-4 seconds. To minimise current draw the minute hand advances ¼ minute every 15 seconds (cf. every 20 seconds for the Navihawk), and the hour hand moves every 60 seconds. The bright yellow second hand advances every second, and only aligns with the 'hash marks' (minute markers) over less than half the dial, much to my initial annoyance. No matter how much I tried to adjust the zero position of the second hand, I found I couldn't do much about it. At some parts of the dial it's as much as ½ a second out, at others it's spot on. Other reports I've seen range from similar aberrations to absolute accuracy. It's a matter of pot luck I suppose, and I don't bother about it now. (As an aside, I have completed in-depth research on at least four occasions into the "quartz second hand not landing on the hash marks" problem. My method is to adopt my normal 'nose pressed against jeweller's window' position, and carefully scrutinise all working quartz models. My research has led me to these conclusions: a) The severity of the 'hash' problem is completely unrelated to the price of the watch (with one or two notable exceptions) b) two examples of the same model can display the 'problem' to differing extents c) jewellers don't appreciate having to clean residue off their windows.) THE SLIDE RULE is fully functional, but again it is hard to distinguish the numbers in anything but strong light. The outer bezel turns easily with the aid of the four polished indentations spaced equally around its circumference. However, it's neither as legible nor as easy to use as the one on the Navihawk, and I can't imagine any pilot realistically using it for routine calculations. There is an hour/minute scale on the banked edge of the dial to assist with calcs involving time, but due to the almost 90° angle of the banking it can't be seen without contorting your arm or taking off the watch—which rather defeats the object of the exercise.  The inner hour/minutes scale is hard to see when the watch is on the wrist |
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MODE CHANGING is accomplished by turning the somewhat small (5mm diameter) crown—clockwise to move the hand on the mode subdial clockwise, and vice versa. Whilst this is theoretically more convenient than the uni-directional pusher on the Navihawk, in practice I find the Navihawk setup more positive and easier to use (the Skyhawk's crown feels 'gritty' when turning). In addition, years of conditioning myself not to wind a mechanical watch on the wrist (for fear of bending the stem) makes me feel very guilty when mode changing on the Skyhawk. I also feel it's easier to change modes accidentally than with the Navihawk. The pushers have a spongy action but work fine. HOW ACCURATE IS IT? Well, the short answer is 'very'. In the nearly 5 months (21 weeks) I've had it, the watch has lost exactly 5 seconds. That works out to 12.4 seconds per year if the rate continues. If anything, the rate of loss seems to be slowing down, as far as I can measure, so the end of year figure may be better than that. (It's been ±0 over the past month.) This is phenomenal from a watch rated by Citizen as ± 15 seconds per month! And my example is by no means isolated—other owners report from ± 0 to ± 5 seconds per month. |
 "I don't care how accurate your Skyhawk is sir, at the third stroke the time will be....." |
IS THE MOVEMENT THERMO-COMPENSATED? How does Citizen do it? Surely the chip must be thermo-compensated to be so accurate? I always used to think so, especially after reading the following about Eco-drives on Citizen's Singapore website:INTEGRATED CIRCUIT Pretty conclusive, I thought. However, I decided to do some more investigating. The Citizen office in Sydney didn't know of any thermo-compensated Citizen model. Customer Service at Citizen of America (who are proving to be most helpful) passed on my query to Citizen Japan, who replied thus: Thank you very much for your interest in our products, and very sorry for the delay of the response. The movement used for Eco-Drive Skyhawk is Cal. C650, and this movement is not thermo-compensated. We use the different means to achieve accuracy for this type of model. So there you have it—it's official, the Skyhawk is not thermo-compensated. But what are the "different means" used to achieve such accuracy, and what are the "yearly variation" models? Inquiring minds want to know! And perhaps Citizen Japan could let Citizen Singapore know the true situation re Eco-drive regulation. [Update: the "yearly variation" models are the super-accurate "The Citizen" watches which are guaranteed to run within +/- 5 seconds per YEAR.] |
 Nice, but is it worth two grand?  Ti Eco-drive Navi on Higuchi kevlar strap |
Conclusions The Skyhawk has many positive attributes, and some not so positive ones. On the plus side, the case and especially the bracelet seem very well made for the price, with thoughtful attention to detail (except for not being able to close the clasp when adjusted to the 'tightest' position!). When adjusted properly, the bracelet is comfortable. The cal.C650 Eco-drive movement is outstanding for its efficiency, accuracy and features. The fact that it is powered by light and has such a long sleep mode (up to four years) makes it in my opinion far superior to other hybrid quartz movements such as Seiko's kinetic, (even leaving aside Seiko's early problems with capacitor life). I like the big and bold styling, and while it may never become a 'classic' design, it reflects the fact that this is a watch for the 21st century and the space age (goodness, was the moon landing over 30 years ago?!). OK, so maybe Omega can rightfully claim that their Speedmaster X-33 (the so-called 'Mars' watch) is flight-qualified by NASA and thus more of a candidate for the title 'space age watch', but it also costs ten times as much as the Skyhawk. At US$200, I reckon the Skyhawk is good value and represents a lot of watch for the money. Its accuracy has meant it has become the time reference for my other watches. On the distaff side, it is a heavy watch, and after a long day my wrist can actually feel tired from lugging it around. This could of course be overcome by buying the more expensive titanium version. I believe Citizen had some quality control problems with the initial titanium examples, but things seem to have settled down now.  If ever a watch needed an anti-glare coating, this is it. The shiny black dial and domed crystal combine to make life difficult under certain lighting conditions, and a coating (or two) would greatly reduce reflections. However, since this may affect the charging efficiency, perhaps it just isn't possible. I find mode-changing by twirling the crown fiddly and not as convenient as the Navihawk's pusher system. These niggles aside, I still believe the Skyhawk is a great all-round watch, packed full of features—not the least of which is its 100m water resistance. Sure, you can get 200m water resistance and similar features in a Casio G-shock and other plastic-cased watches, and they're great for sports that are really tough on watches like cycling and rock climbing, but they don't have the looks and panache of the Skyhawk. As an example of this, the other day I was talking to a young computer salesman in a shop when he suddenly noticed the Skyhawk on my wrist. "Hey, love your watch!" he enthused. I was so astounded (and flattered) at anyone actually noticing what I was wearing that I took it off and passed it to him so he could have a closer inspection and feel the solidity. "Yeah, looks great," said he, peering at the dial to see the maker's name. "It's a Citizen" I offered. "Oh, a Citizen," he said, with just a little less enthusiasm. "I thought it was a Breitling—my boss is really into those, 'cos he goes flying and stuff. They're really cool." I didn't know whether to feel pleased because he thought it was a Breitling (possibly because of the slide-rule bezel), or miffed because he wasn't so enthusiastic about a mere Citizen. I reflected afterward that the Skyhawk can stand on its own merits, especially in the bang-for-buck stakes. It seems a pity that many watchlovers dismiss electronic watches as soulless and 'designed by a machine'. I like to look at a beautifully finished mechanical movement as much as the next WIS, and can marvel at the ingenuity of the people who made it, but I think there's just as much (if not more) thought and skill that goes into researching and designing something as new and complex as the Skyhawk's eco-drive movement. We probably don't appreciate it so much because most of 'the gubbins' is hidden from us. You can see springs and cogs, you can't see electrons. If you like complicated watches (and you do, don't you, else you wouldn't have read this far :)), get a Navihawk or a Skyhawk. If you've already got a Navihawk, still get a Skyhawk for the Eco-drive movement. Or perhaps you'd prefer to get one of the new Eco-drive Navihawks and have the best of both worlds! Seiko used to have a saying about their quartz models, "One day all watches will be made this way." I hate to tell 'em, but they're wrong. If there's ever going to be only one way to make a watch, it'll be along the lines of the Eco-drive. I can't see anything coming anywhere near it in terms of its efficiency, accuracy, usefulness, easy maintenance, environmental friendliness, and price. Citizen are constantly working at refining and slimming down the Eco-drive movements, and researching ways of making the light-to-electricity conversion rate higher (it's presently running at about 20%). I can't think of any better way to power a watch—and that includes the body heat Thermic model that Citizen have just brought out. All they have to do to make it perfect is cut down on the reflections from the crystal and dial—and oh yes, I nearly forgot—include my Adelaide timezone, GMT+9.5h, so I don't have to keep remembering to add (or was it subtract) that odd half hour!  Photo courtesy of Brandon Sparks |
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