Beaufort Aerotimer Watch Review

Kickstarter Campaign

Available for Pre Order on Kickstarter Now

Case

The all new Beaufort Aerotimer out of New Zealand is a mix of traditional pilot styled watches with World War II Era design cues. It is indeed named after the Bristol Beaufort Torpedo bomber which was utilized by British, Australian, and NZ forces. The watch itself comes in a few different flavors but I must say the Pastel light blue color dial is my favorite. It is a very well constructed watch and does not feel like it comes from a smaller brand or “Microbrand”. The 316L solid steel rose gold case measures in at 40MM x 11.5MM x 48.5MM. It features 20MM lugs and an excellent and useable 100 Meters of water resistance. The leaf like lugs are rather bold and really stand out when on wrist, while the thickness is actually quite thin for a swiss made automatic caliber. I like the neat exhibition sapphire caseback which is held down with real screws and done right. Overall, it feels good on the wrist and the finishing is very good in comparison to other timepieces at this price bracket of under $400 USD ( Kickstarter Pre-Order Price ).

Dial

The dial is probably the most beautiful part of the watch with its’ light pastel colour and traditional California dial layout. The California dial consists of half Romans and half Numerals. The sword style hands and applied indexes at 12-3-9 will feature BGW9 Blue lume which I think will look slick on this color dial. Everything is very legibile at a glance thanks to the Inner AR coated single domed sapphire crystal. Classical railroad tracks circle the outer portion of the dial marked with minute and seconds. There are a few different dial color options so I would suggest looking over all of them, as the white option really caught my eye as well. There was an alignment error on the prototype models at the 1:00 marker but no worries as the owner has told me this issue will be fixed on the production models.

Movement

Powering the Aerotimer is the trusted and reliable Swiss Made automatic Selitta SW200. I have tons of experience with this caliber and really enjoy its’ solid performance and reliability. The movement features a 38 hour power reserve, 26 Jewels, Hand-Wind, and seconds hand stop. My prototype model is keeping decent time at around +5 seconds per day, which is A OK in my book!

Full grain Italian Leather Band

The bands they have chosen are Genuine Italian leather quick-release straps equipped with a two button deployant clasp. In terms of comfort, they are soft, supple, and broken in out of the box. A nice detail is the double stitch on esch end which matches the 12/3/9 applied markers just fine. If I were to take the Aerotimer near water or in water I would probably throw it on a nice seatbelt NATO or canvas band...that
​would look stellar.

Conclusion

Furthermore, the Aerotimer has certainly surprised me in terms of overall fit and finish. It IS a well made timepiece at a reasonable price and It
is no surprise they have surpassed their goal
already on Kickstarter. I like the clean aesthetic which is traditional and classical - yet slightly sporty at the same
time. It is definitely one that can be dressed up and dressed down for casual situations. I can certainly reccommend the Aerotimer by Beaufort and wish them more success in the future.