The Newest Bulova Lunar Pilot Is a Colourful Homage to Spacefaring History
The newest edition of the Bulova Lunar Pilot comes with a fire-engine red dial that makes it easily stand apart from previous editions of the popular chronograph. The new dial, however, isn’t simply an aesthetic flourish, it’s a colourful reference to one of the greatest stories of watches in space. The tale of how a Bulova chronograph came to be worn on the moon by Apollo 15’s Commander David Scott is well known in watch circles, but in brief, when the crystal on Scott’s NASA-issue Speedmaster popped off, his backup Bulova was pressed into action during his exploration of the lunar surface. (For more on that, as well as an introduction to another great recent version of the Lunar Pilot, check out our recent story the Lunar Pilot Meteorite Edition.)
One interesting fact that isn’t usually included in the story of Bulova and Apollo 15 is that it the mission coincided with a total lunar eclipse, which the astronauts captured on film. A lunar eclipse is caused by the Earth blocking the light from the sun, giving the moon a reddish tint and lending the event the nickname “blood moon.” While this event was just a footnote among Apollo 15’s accomplishments, it was the perfect excuse for Bulova to create a new version of the Lunar Pilot with a bright red dial.
Like previous editions, the new Bulova Lunar Pilot “Blood Moon” combines vintage looks and modern performance, with a cushion-shaped case made out of 316L stainless steel and a next-gen quartz movement. Features like the original “panda” chronograph configuration remain, with snailed silver subdial counters, a diamond-tipped seconds hand, and a tachymetre scale around the edge of the dial. Other standout vintage features include the paddle-style pushers which were designed for ease of use while wearing gloves (a feature which proved its worth on Scott’s lunar excursions). Inside is Bulova’s state-of-the-art HPQ NP20 calibre, which features a 3-pronged quartz crystal resonating at 262 kHz — a full eight times greater than a standard quartz movement — and boasts an impressive accuracy of just seconds per year.
While many aspects of the Lunar Pilot are period-correct to the watch worn by Scott (including the 43.5mm case size), quartz was still in its infancy in 1971 and his Bulova was powered by a Swiss-made mechanical movement. That might make the quartz movement in the new Lunar Pilot seem anachronistic to some, but from another perspective, it makes total sense. With the superior durability and accuracy of quartz movements over mechanical ones, there’s no question that Scott would have been wearing a quartz watch on the moon had the technology existed at the time. That makes the new Lunar Pilot a true successor in spirit to the original, if not entirely historically accurate. Either way, thanks to its eye-catching dial and historic vintage looks, there’s no mistaking the Lunar Pilot Blood Moon for anything else.
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