HAMILTON POCKET WATCH IDENTIFICATION SERIES

Bell called this modified H-13D test aircraft the Bell Model 201 but the Army gave it the designation XH-13F. Bell was already flying an H-13D equipped with a French-designed, American-made, Continental XT-51 gas turbine engine. The Army held the company in high regard, based on the excellent service rendered by the piston engine-powered Bell 47 during the Korean War. The helicopter could climb to a service ceiling of 1,824 m (6,000 ft).īell Helicopter Corporation enjoyed several advantages in competing for this contract. It could carry a payload of 360 kg (800 lb) a distance of at least 365 km (227 miles) and cruise at 184 kph (114 mph). The Army specifications described an aircraft that weighed 3,600 kg (8,000 lb), fully loaded. Army launched a design competition for a new medical evacuation (medevac) helicopter. The concept for this aircraft sprang from the cold, muddy battlefields of the Korean War, where the original MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) helicopter, the Bell 47, recovered thousands of wounded soldiers and delivered them straight to critical care units. They usually heard the unmistakable whop-whop-whop of the main rotor blade long before they saw a Huey. People knew it not just on sight but by sound, too. For a time, the Huey was one of the most recognizable aircraft in history. Army as a derivative of the original designation HU-1A - Helicopter, Utility, Model 1A. military operated them and they ranged to every corner of South Vietnam and into Cambodia and Laos. Today, the company is part of the Swatch Group, and its headquarters and production facilities relocated from Pennsylvania to Switzerland in 2003.įind vintage Hamilton watches and pocket watches on 1stDibs.What the jeep was to Americans during World War II, so was the Huey to those who fought in Vietnam. Three years later, superspy and watch enthusiast James Bond donned a Pulsar in Live and Let Die. In the second half of the 20th century, Hamilton became well known for several innovations: It developed the first-ever battery-operated electric watch, the Ventura, in 1957, as well as the first-ever digital wristwatch, the Hamilton Pulsar Time Computer, in 1970. (Hamilton watches can also be seen in the films The Frogmen, Blue Hawaii, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Men in Black.) The model was also featured in the film Shanghai Express alongside the brand’s Flintridge watch, further expanding Hamilton’s popularity.

HAMILTON POCKET WATCH IDENTIFICATION SERIES

Hamilton’s Piping Rock watch, an Art Deco–inspired design that featured elegant Roman numerals set in black for the hour markers, made its debut in 1928 and was gifted to the New York Yankees to celebrate their World Series win that year.

Byrd timed his historic flights over glaciers and chunks of sea ice with a Hamilton pocket watch in the late 1920s, and a Hamilton timepiece used by Byrd during these expeditions went on display in 2018 at the National Watch & Clock Museum. Legendary polar explorer Admiral Richard E. The general public’s interest in Hamilton watches grew rapidly in the 1920s. The new style of watch was also appealing to aviators, and Hamilton aeronautical watches became all the rage among pilots, specifically those flying for the new U.S. Hamilton transitioned from pocket watches to wristwatches in 1914, as it supplied timepieces to American troops fighting in World War I. Wristwatches, naturally, were more convenient to wear and use in battle. The East Coast company’s timepieces eventually earned the moniker “The Watch of Railroad Accuracy.” Hamilton’s pocket watches were extremely alluring to train conductors, who began buying them en masse. Railway workers would be required to wear a pocket watch, as the timepieces were responsible for keeping conductors on schedule, and the watchmaking industry - and early American pocket-watch manufacturers such as Hamilton, Elgin National Watch Company and the Waltham Watch Company - benefitted. But, despite setting these zones, train conductors were not always synchronized, leading to deadly accidents on the railroads.Įnter watchmaker Hamilton, founded in 1892.

Therefore, in 1883, the railroad companies established the four time zones as we know them today. Back then, time was not standardized across the country.

In an era when the safety of America’s bustling railroads absolutely depended on accurate timepieces for its conductors, watchmaker Hamilton pioneered cutting-edge, impossibly precise watches in a complex that spanned one square city block of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, during the late 19th century.Īs railroad tracks were laid across the United States and steam locomotives began traversing vast distances, the American railroad system ran into a problem.

Hamilton pocket watch identification