2008 BEIJING As the Official Timekeeper of the Olympic Games Beijing 2008, Omega celebrated its role by creating this unique Speedmaster 5-Counters Chronograph. For the first time ever, five counters were displayed on the dial of a mechanical wristwatch, arranged in the form of the iconic Olympic rings. The functions included a small seconds counter, a 7-day chronograph recorder, a day indicator, a 12-hour chronograph recorder and a 30-minute chronograph recorder.
2008 ALASKA PROJECT Created in a limited edition of 1,970 pieces, the watch is based on the“ Alaska II” project that used a standard Speedmaster with a modified dial and hands in conjunction with an outer anodized aluminum thermal shield. This allowed the watch to withstand temperatures, in lunar or spatial atmospheres, ranging from-148C to + 260C.
2008“ HB-SIA” GMT Omega was a Main Partner of the mission and produced this watch named after the Solar Impulse prototype plane, which had an ambitious aim of flying around the Earth in a plane powered only by the sun. The design took inspiration from the plane itself, with a titanium case and a dial made of black carbon fiber, similar to the HB-SIA’ s composite covering. A central GMT hand, which completes one rotation in 24 hours, can be used to read a second time zone.
2009 APOLLO 11 Made in a limited edition of 69 examples to mark the 40th anniversary of man’ s conquest of the moon, this Speedmaster model made in platinum has a unique yellow gold medallion on the small seconds counter representing, in high relief, the mission patch of Apollo 11. This is repeated, again in gold, on the caseback.
2010 APOLLO-SOYUZ With a dial and subdials made from slices of meteorite, this Speedmaster was built from a real piece of space. It commemorates the historic moment when astronaut Thomas P. Stafford( USA) and cosmonaut Alexei A. Leonov( USSR) shook hands in space in 1975. The caseback features two spacecraft from both the USA and the Soviet Union and the names of the cosmonauts and astronauts involved.
2011 APOLLO 15 This watch celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 15 moon landing and is included in a numbered series of 1,971 pieces. The mission patch inspired the red, white and blue colors on the dial, and the caseback includes an engraving of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, which was used on the moon for the first time during the mission.
106 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | WINTER 2018