News · Formex

Formex gives its titanium Field a pilot's licence

The AirField keeps the Field Automatic's 40mm titanium case and 65-hour Sellita, adding a pilot's dial, aeroplane counterweight and propeller caseback.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 4 min read · 26 September 2026

• Formex has turned its titanium Field Automatic into a pilot's watch, the AirField 40mm Automatic, keeping the same case and movement underneath a new dial.
• The grained dial has hand-filled recessed numerals, a triangle at twelve and a seconds hand with an aeroplane-shaped counterweight, backed by a propeller caseback.
• Four dials cost A$1,380 or US$1,060 on nylon and A$1,700 or US$1,200 on leather, on pre-order from Formex with deliveries from late October 2026.

I have always thought of the field watch and the pilot's watch as cousins who do not speak at family gatherings. One is supposed to be about legibility on the ground, the other about legibility at altitude, and in practice they share most of the same DNA: big numerals, a matte dial, lume everywhere and not much else. Formex, the Biel brand that has been making Swiss watches since 1999, has decided the cousins might as well share a house. It has taken its titanium Field Automatic and turned it into a pilot's watch called the Formex AirField 40mm Automatic.

Same case, new cockpit

It is worth being clear from the start about what has changed and what has not, because this is a new dial on an existing watch rather than a new watch from the ground up. The case is the one Formex already uses for the current Field Automatic: 40mm across, 10.6mm thick and 46.6mm from lug to lug, with 20mm lugs, in grade 2 titanium hard-coated to 900 on the Vickers scale. The case alone weighs 54 grams, which is why it disappears on the wrist, and Formex says it has a perceived thickness of 8.8mm thanks to its faceted, matte-finished shape and short lugs.

Water resistance is 150 metres with a screw-down crown, which is more than any pilot will ever ask of it, and a good deal more than you would expect from something that looks this much like a flight instrument.

A dial that borrows from the instrument panel

The new work is almost all on the dial, and it is good work. Formex has used a finely grained surface with a sloped chapter ring, with recessed Arabic numerals and hour markers, each one filled with lume by hand. At twelve o'clock sits a triangle flanked by two dots, the most familiar signature of the pilot's watch. The date disc is matched to each dial colour, so the window does not shout.

The hands are broad swords with sandblasted surfaces, and the long seconds hand carries a counterweight shaped like a small aeroplane. I expected to find that too cute. On the brand's photographs it is small enough to read as a detail rather than a gimmick, and it gives the watch a sense of humour without spoiling the instrument look, which is a hard balance to strike.

Four dials, named for the airfield

There are four colours, and Formex has named them after things you would see from the cockpit. Tarmac Grey is the dark flat grey of a wet runway, with a red tip on the seconds hand and Super-LumiNova BGW9. Jet Black and Horizon Blue are the obvious ones, the blue with crisp white lume. Desert Sand is the one that stands out: a pale dial with the lume blacked out, so the numerals read dark against it by day, and a red-tipped seconds hand for contrast.

If I were buying, it would be the Desert Sand, while accepting that blacked-out lume trades night-time legibility for looks. Grey is the more sensible choice and probably the better pilot's watch. Sand is the more interesting one.

A propeller on the back

Turn it over and there is another change from the Field. Formex has given the AirField a solid caseback decorated with a classic radial aircraft engine and propeller. Inside is the Sellita SW200-2 Power+, the same Swiss automatic the Field uses, running at 4Hz on 26 jewels with a date and a 65-hour power reserve, a figure that would have been remarkable at this price not so long ago and is now, happily, what we have come to expect.

Nylon or leather, and the clasp that is the real story

You choose between two strap families. The nylon straps are elastic, water-resistant and washable, with a hook-and-loop fastening and quick-release spring bars. The Italian calf leather straps come with Formex's carbon fibre composite deployant clasp and its patented 7mm gradual micro-adjustment system, which remains one of the most genuinely useful ideas at this end of the market: you can loosen or tighten it by a few millimetres on the wrist, as the afternoon warms up, without touching a tool.

There are four leather colours and six nylon ones, and the price depends only on which family you pick, never on the dial, so the only real decision is how you want it to feel.

The AirField is not a revolution, and it is not trying to be one. It is a very well-made field watch that has found a second job, and at this price it is hard to think of a better-specified titanium pilot's watch from Switzerland.

Formex AirField 40mm Automatic pricing and availability

The AirField is sold directly by Formex on pre-order, with the first deliveries scheduled for late October 2026. All four dials are the same price. On a nylon strap: A$1,380, US$1,060, CHF 830, €950, £860, C$1,300, ¥165,000. On leather with the carbon deployant clasp: A$1,700, US$1,200, CHF 970, €1,075, £970, C$1,450, ¥190,500.