The latest Pelagos milwatch, the FXD GMT “Zulu Time”, is an extension of Tudor’s relationship with the French military, but also similar to the recent Hanhart Aerospace Limited Editionin the sense that it too, is to do with official naval aviation.

In 2021 Tudor announced an official partnership with the Marine nationale, their first official partnership since the 1980s. The relationship between the two dates back to 1956, when the Toulon-based Underwater Study and Research Group (Groupement d’Etude et de Recherches Sous-marines aka G.E.R.S.) received both reference 7922 and 7923 Submariners for assessment and feedback. Since the 1950s, Tudor has been officially supplying the Marine Nationale (French Navy) with diving watches.

The first Pelagos FXD model (the name refers to the FiXeD strap bars of the watch case) was introduced that year. Now, it is expanding to French Naval Aviation (Aéronautique Navale), with the addition of Zulu Time on top of the local time and a third time zone.

Zulu Time is the name for Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) and refers to the Prime Meridian 0° aka Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The ‘Zulu’ is the NATO phonetic alphabet (i.e. alpha, bravo, Charlie etc) word for ‘Z’.

The new FXD GMT ‘Zulu Time’ comes in a 42mm (12.7mm thick) satin-brushed grade 2 titanium case with the eponymous fixed strap bars and 200m water resistance. Its 24-hour bidirectional bezel is also grade 2 titanium and has a black ceramic insert and 24-hour graduation with Super-LumiNova.

It has a matte black dial with applied hour markers and snowflake hands with beige Super-LumiNova. The 24-hour GMT/ Zulu time hand is orange lacquer with an arrowhead also filled with Super-LumiNova. There is also a date window at 3 o’clock.

On the grade 5 titanium case back is the Aéronautique Navale logo and engraved text – “M.N.24”, which stands for ‘Marine Nationale 2024’. Underneath is the automatic Tudor in-house COSC-certified MT5652-U which has a tungsten rotor, beats at 28,800VPH, and has a power reserve of 65 hours.

It comes on a green woven fabric strap with grade 2 titanium pin buckle and keeper. The strap fabric is woven on19th century Jacquard looms by Julien Faure. There is also a removable fabric keeper embroidered with the French Naval Aviation’s roundel – in the blue, white and red circled in gold and topped with a black anchor. The Australian RRP of Tudor’s new Pelagos FXD GMT is $6,890.

[Photo credit: Tudor]

Categories: GMT/ dual/ worldtimer, Military watches, Tudor, Watch Profile, watches