Poljot
Pilot CCCP MIG 29 - Sturmanskie Soviet Air Force

Poljot Sturmanskie chronograph. One of the last vintage military aviation watches from the Soviet-era Russian Air Force. Blue dial with Tritium-lumed indexes, bi-directional rotating bezel calibrated over twelve hours, adjustable via the crown on the left side of the case and protected by the crystal to avoid accidental contact with flight suits. Date window at six o’clock, Soviet Air Force emblem under the central axis. Baton-style hour and minute hands in steel, and two flight time totalizer subdials: on the left, a 60-second counter marked per second, and on the right, a 30-minute counter with a red spear-tipped hand. The central chronograph seconds hand is also red.

These watches were manufactured in Watch Factory No.1 on the outskirts of Moscow, with Swiss-grade quality. After the major quartz crisis of the 1960s, following the acquisition of Lip’s machine tools by the Soviet Union, the Moscow No.1 plant—also known as the Kirov Factory—benefited from Swiss technology. Many machines were imported from Switzerland and used to develop a reliable chronograph for military use: the Sturmanskie (meaning “Navigator” in Russian).
Initially, the factory produced a simple watch with a white dial and central seconds hand, based on a modified Lip 26 calibre to implement the stop-seconds function and central seconds rather than the traditional small seconds at six o'clock (a model worn by Yuri Gagarin during his spaceflight). Later, tools from the Swiss Valjoux movement assembly lines led to the creation of the Poljot chronograph shown here, powered by the calibre 31659, a chronograph variant of the 3133 calibre—an improved take on the Swiss Valjoux 7733.
This issued timepiece, strictly intended for military use, was employed by pilots of the Soviet Air Force in the final years of the USSR. As a high-end watch, it was primarily assigned to squadrons responsible for homeland airspace defense flying MiG-29 “Fulcrum” and MiG-31 “Foxhound” aircraft.

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