Stowa is a German company and one of the five original flieger manufacturers.

Diameter: 40.1mm

Lug-to-lug: 48.5mm

Thickness: 8.9mm

Lug width is: 20mm

The watch has 50 meters of water resistance.

Looking at the face of this watch the first thing one notices is the very unusual dial associated with the Type B flieger variant. Closest to the edge of the watch are minute markers, other than at the 12 o’clock position which has an arrow. Closer to the center of the dial are the hour markers with each one in Arabic numerals. Other than time markings this watch is devoid of text, no logos or other information, and everything is white against a black dial.  the 24-hour dial, with the standard 12 hours is larger Arabic font and the 13 through 24 hours in a smaller font size forming the inner markings. Everything is a stark white against the black dial. The hour and minute hands are sword style and thermally blued; the hour hand is quite distinct in terms of how short it is compared to traditional watches in order to align with the hour markers. The watch does have a central sweeping seconds hand. Superluminova C3 is used extensively throughout the watch dial and on the hands and is generously applied.

The case is stainless steel with a fine matte finish that Stowa notes is ground by hand. The lugs do curve downward toward the wrist unlike traditional fliegers and I think provides a more fitted look when worn versus traditional straight lugs. The onion-style crown is easy to grip and manipulate. The crown offers two positions. In position zero the watch can be wound and thus this is not a screw-down crown. In position one the time can be set. The second hand does stop so the watch features hacking. The dial is protected by a sapphire crystal.

The watch has a display case back via a sapphire crystal. Model information is around the diameter on the back side of the case. The movement features blued screws and a golden Stowa engraving. This model came on a leather strap in the pilot format with rivets and a stainless steel tang buckle.

This watch features the Sellita SW215-1 movement. This is a hand-wind only movement. It has 19 jewels, offers approximately 42 hours of power reserve, and beats at 4 Hz. On my timegrapher I get an average gain of four seconds per day across six positions, with a positional range of 0 seconds/day to +9 seconds/day.

My overall thoughts:

The positives:

• The best lume job I’ve had on any watch, ever

• Good accuracy

• Really unique look

• Comfortable strap

The negatives:

• Wish it had 100 meters of water resistance

Overall I am really happy with this watch. The Type B flieger design is a really unique look and when I was looking I wanted one from an original manufacturer. I chose Stowa because I felt the case construction looked like it took some modern improvements (e.g., the curved lugs) while overall staying relatively true to the original design. This model is available as an automatic and with a date function, but I went no-date and handwind to keep those elements more historically true. I believe Stowa does TOP finish on any of the movements you go with for this model which would explain the accuracy.

The lume is incredible. Fliegers are known for their lume and this does not disappoint. It is easily the best lume work on a watch I’ve ever owned. The strap is comfortable; when I got it the leather smell was a bit overpowering but that dissipated after a day. It’s both thick and soft. Stowa’s pricing for straps is pretty low too compared to other manufacturers so I’m not concerned about getting a replacement if needed.

There’s not really much in the way of negatives. I do prefer watch movements that can go 48 hours on power reserve so they can get through a weekend unworn but this is manual wind anyway and given there is no date it really doesn’t matter so I couldn’t list it as a negative. I’d have preferred 100 meters of watch resistance (you can obtain that without a screw down crown; I had a Hamilton that did) but 50 is enough that in daily life I’d not be concerned. Just not a watch I’d take out on a boat.