Take to the Skies: Introducing Tudor Pelagos FXD GMT Zulu Time x Marine Nationale, a Pilot’s Watch

Tudor's relationship with the military, particularly its collaboration with the French Navy (Marine Nationale), dates back to the mid-twentieth century. At that time, the Marine Nationale was looking for durable, dependable, and economical dive watches, and Tudor came up with the classic Tudor Submariner. In 2021, the timepiece maker honoured its Marine Nationale legacy with the Pelagos FXD line, which was built in partnership with the French Navy and optimised for underwater navigation. Tudor now returns to this collection's roots with its second official Marine Nationale watch. But this time, it's not a diving watch; it’s a pilot's GMT watch, known as Pelagos FXD GMT Zulu Time (Ref. 2542G247NU), designed specifically for French Naval Aviation.

In the past, the Groupe d'Étude et de Recherches Sur-Marines (G.E.R.S.), a French Navy-affiliated scientific body situated in Toulon, evaluated Oyster Prince Submariner watches in real-world scenarios. References 7922 and 7923 are waterproof for up to 100 metres (330 feet), and have self-winding and manual movements respectively. In 2021, TUDOR partnered with the French Navy's combat swimmers to create a new technical watch for underwater navigation, renewing a historic collaboration. The Pelagos FXD model introduced new functional features to Tudor, including fixed strap bars machined into the 42 mm titanium case for increased robustness and reliability. The specifications were precise and demanding.

With Pelagos FXD GMT Zulu Time, the timepiece maker now offers a watch designed to meet the needs of pilots from the Aéronautique Navale or French Naval Aviation. This means it’s a military pilot's watch with a GMT function, which is a first for the FXD collection and the Pelagos line overall. The 42 mm case, the crown at 3 o’clock with the Tudor shield, and the 24-hour bidirectional rotatable bezel with a black ceramic insert are all crafted from grade 2 titanium on the central case with fully brushed surfaces. Sporting an appropriate tool-watch look, the piece gets fixed lug bars machined into the casing for optimal rigidity. The bezel is filled with Grade A Swiss Super-LumiNova® with green emissions and a beige-coloured luminescent material. 

The Pelagos FXD GMT watch can maintain track of time in up to three time zones at once, one of which is Zulu time, the military designation for Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) and the standard reference time for all aviators; it’s a useful tool for conducting critical operations. Zulu time is equivalent to zero meridian time or time at zero degrees of longitude, often known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). On the new watch, Zulu time is kept by a highly visible bright orange lacquer hand that completes a full lap around the dial every 24 hours. Once set, this hand is rarely reset, allowing sailors in French Naval Aviation to quickly check the global aviation reference time.

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The black matte dial has an angular hour hand, widely known as Snowflake, which displays local time. It is set using the winding crown and ‘jumps’ in one-hour increments for convenient adjustment when changing time zones. The date at 3 o’clock changes when the hour hand reaches midnight, either backwards or forwards with a beige background and black numeral. A third time zone can be verified using the 24-hour illuminated bidirectional bezel and the orange Zulu time hand. This watch has eight square-shaped hour markers, two rectangular markers for 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock, and an inverted triangle marker for 12 o’clock; applied hour markers are filled with Grade A Swiss Super-LumiNova® blue-emission beige-coloured luminescent material.

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This timepiece has been certified by both  COSC and METAS, and is a Master Chronometer. It is powered by Manufacture Calibre MT5652-U with a silicon balance spring and a 65-hour power reserve. In other words, it’s a self-winding mechanical movement with a bidirectional rotor system. The Grade 5 titanium caseback is engraved with the Aéronautique Navale (French Naval Aviation) logo and the inscription ‘M.N.24’ (Marine nationale 2024), inspired by the original TUDOR M.N. engravings of the 1970s and ’80s. The watch is finished on a fabric strap with a Grade 2 titanium pin buckle and green removable fabric keeper. The watch comes with a 200-metre water resistance.