This New Chronograph Is the Best You Can Buy for Around $5,000. It’s Not Even Close

One of the more intriguing but frustrating watches on the market over the past few years has been the Longines Spirit Flyback. Here was a mechanical flyback chronograph from the brand that literally invented the complication, offered at a price no one else could match, and yet, it was too flawed to be truly great.

The dial and bezel were just a little too busy, but I could look past that as it was still an attractive watch. More importantly, the watch’s 42mm case diameter and especially its massive 17mm thickness made it virtually unwearable, which was a shame for a watch with almost unlimited potential.

Longines

But today, Longines has launched an all-new version of the watch — now called the Spirit Pilot Flyback — that fully, and I mean fully, lives up to the model’s potential. It’s now the best chronograph you can buy for around $5,000 — and it’s not particularly close.

I also think it’s the best watch that Longines has made in decades. In my opinion, you would have to go back to the 1940s and the brand’s classic Cal. 13ZN-powered chronographs to even make a valid argument — the new Spirit Pilot Flyback is that good.

I spent a little over a week with the watch prior to its release, and it was one of the most difficult review samples I’ve ever had to part with. In fact, I’m seriously considering buying one. Here’s why.

Photo by Johnny Brayson for Gear Patrol

The size is perfect

Longines has completely overhauled its flyback chronograph — virtually everything is new on the watch — but the most impactful and welcome update is the new size. The case now measures 39.5mm across, 47.4mm lug-to-lug and, best of all, just 13.4mm thick.

It’s not a superslim watch by any stretch, but it’s thinner than my Omega Seamaster Diver 300m, which, for a mechanical flyback chronograph with 100m of water resistance and a sapphire caseback, is pretty remarkable.

The watch wears its thinness well, too. The box sapphire crystal, toothy convex bezel and the polished chamfer along the horizontally brushed midcase all do an excellent job of making the watch appear even thinner than its measurement suggests. I found that it sat low and comfortably on my wrist, as well.

Photo by Johnny Brayson for Gear Patrol

The movement is special

So how did Longines shave off nearly 4mm of thickness between the previous generation of the Spirit Flyback and this new one? Mainly through the use of a new movement. The old chronograph had an automatic movement, which was largely responsible for its beefiness.

For the Spirit Flyback Movement, Longines swapped in a brand-new custom ETA movement that’s exclusive to the brand: the Cal. L792.4. It’s a hand-wound movement, which accounts for its thinness, but there’s a whole lot more going on than just the omission of a rotor.

The movement features a silicon balance spring for magnetic resistance, it has an impressive 68-hour power reserve, and it uses a column wheel for crisp action on the chronograph. It also boasts flyback functionality, obviously, meaning you can stop, reset and restart the chronograph with a single push of the bottom pusher while it’s running — a feature normally only seen on far more expensive watches.

Photo by Johnny Brayson for Gear Patrol

The movement is a COSC-certified chronometer, and I noticed no discernible time deviations in my time with the watch — it kept bulletproof time, within a second or two per day. The chronograph action is crisp and precise with no fluttering whatsoever, and to top it all off, the movement is gorgeous to look at through the sapphire crystal. There’s perlage on the baseplate, some nice Geneva striping on the prominent bridge and the column wheel and screws are heat-blued.

One critique I frequently see of Longines is that they now (and have for some time) use movements from fellow Swatch Group brand ETA instead of producing their movements in-house like the brand did before the Quartz Crisis. But this, to me, is an unfair argument.

The movement in this watch, and the movements in several other Longines watches, are exclusive to the brand, and there is an entire floor in the ETA manufacture dedicated solely to Longines. Is this any different than Richemont brands like IWC and Panerai using “in-house” movements made by Richemont-owned manufacture ValFleurier? I would argue it is not.

Photo by Johnny Brayson for Gear Patrol

The look is clean

You can put away your Uber and Amazon jokes; Longines finally got rid of the five stars on the dial of a Spirit model. People really hate the five stars that have appeared on the dial of every previous model in the brand’s relatively new Spirit line. Longines has clearly heard those complaints, so the brand omitted the flourish from the new Spirit Pilot Flyback and the concurrently released time-only Spirit Pilot.

I was largely indifferent toward the five stars, but I can admit that this new dial looks better without them. There’s a Longines logo at 12:00 with an applied winged hourglass logo — AKA the best logo in the biz — and three lines of text at 6:00: Flyback, Chronograph and Officially Certified.

Photo by Johnny Brayson for Gear Patrol

The ceramic bezel has also been cleaned up with improvements across the board. It’s now a countdown style rather than a dive-timer, which makes more sense for a pilot’s chronograph, and Longines has gotten rid of the ugly little minute-marker dots from the previous Flyback.

It’s now pleasingly symmetrical with markings only every five minutes, and every single marking on the bezel is now fully lumed with Super-LumiNova. Combined with the lume on the hands and applied indices, the watch is shockingly legible in the dark. The bidirectional bezel action has also been improved. It feels very smooth and purposeful, and isn’t too dissimilar to the action on a modern Rolex GMT-Master II, believe it or not.

There’s just one color option at launch, and while I’m not normally much into gilt dials, it’s hard to fault this one. It’s devestatingly pretty. All printing on the matte-black dial is in gold, as is the metal ring that surrounds the indices. The hands and indices are gold-tone as well, and I’m glad Longines went with white lume instead of fauxtina. It helps the watch look just vintage-inspired enough while still coming across as decidedly modern and high-end.

Photo by Johnny Brayson for Gear Patrol

Also helping in that regard is the box sapphire crystal. It sits just proud of the case, so it doesn’t read super retro like on a Tudor Black Bay, but still looks very nice. Several layers of AR coating also make the crystal exceptionally glare-free.

The fit and finish are superb

Longines always punches above its weight class when it comes to the quality of its watches, but the new Spirit Pilot Flyback feels particularly elevated. I previously reviewed the Blancpain Air Command, a similarly styled flyback chronograph from the Swatch Group that costs four times as much as this Longines. And while the Blancpain is obviously a nicer watch, that gap between it and the Longines doesn’t feel anywhere near that big.

The Spirit Pilot Flyback’s finishing is excellent all around. The brushing is even and beautiful, and all transitions between different areas of finishing are flawless to my eye. The watch looks and feels expensive, and while it technically is at $5,500, in the insane world of luxury watches, it’s almost comically affordable for what it is.

Photo by Johnny Brayson for Gear Patrol

The bracelet is also quite nice, and feels a bit like a cross between the old and new Omega Speedmaster bracelets — it looks like the old bracelet but feels and acts more like the new one. It’s a three-link setup with large, rounded center links flanked by smaller links on either side, and all links are vertically brushed with polished chamfers where they meet. It’s toolish but fancy, suiting the vibe of the watch, and it feels great on the wrist.

It does have a male end link, but that didn’t affect the fit at all on my 6.5-inch wrist, as I found it draped nicely and also had a pleasing taper. The clasp is excellent, too, with a dual-trigger release, polished chamfers and an applied winged hourglass logo.

There’s also a toolless microadjustment system built into the clasp, which the old Spirit Flyback lacked. It only has three steps of travel, so I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more, but it feels so well-machined and is such a tactile joy to use that I found myself playing with it just for the fun of it.

Photo by Johnny Brayson for Gear Patrol

If I had one nit to pick with the watch, and I really had to search for one because it’s damn near perfect, it’s that I wish the lugs were vertically brushed to match the bracelet. They feature circular brushing, so in certain lighting situations, the transition from lug to bracelet can look a little jarring. But, again, I’m really reaching here. This watch is amazing.

Pricing and availability

The Longines Spirit Pilot Flyback is available now from Longines and retails for $5,500 on a bracelet or $5,350 on a decidedly nice brown leather strap equipped with both quick-release spring bars and a microadjustable deployant clasp.

That price puts it near the top of Longines’ lineup, but it still feels underpriced for what you’re getting. I think it’s among the very best watches you can buy for $5,500, and it’s easily the best chronograph for that kind of money. Its closest competition arguably comes from the Tudor Black Bay Chrono and the Breitling Classic Avi, both of which are bigger, thicker, less refined and lack flyback functionality. Oh, and they cost more, too.

Longines knocked this one out of the park, the latest in a string of hits for the brand, and I can’t wait to see what the Winged Hourglass has in store for next year. After 193 years, the brand somehow keeps getting better.

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