Quick takes: new IWC IW389105 Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition “Lake Tahoe”

We take a quick look at the recently released IWC IW389105 Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition “Lake Tahoe”.

Located between California and Nevada, Lake Tahoe is a mountainous area frequently flown over by the pilots of the U.S Navy TOPGUN School. The winter landscape around this freshwater lake as well as white uniforms have influenced the design of the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph TOP GUN Edition “Lake Tahoe” (Ref. IW389105).

Review: IWC IW389105 Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition “Lake Tahoe”

The Case and Dial

The chronograph features a 44.5-millimetre white ceramic case, a pitch-black dial, and black hands coated with luminescent material. IWC and Pantone have specified the ceramic color as “IWC Lake Tahoe”. The pushers and crown are made of stainless steel, with a titanium caseback.

The Chronograph TOP GUN Edition “Lake Tahoe” uses similar case dimensions as the older TOP GUN black ceramic reference IW3789-01 which was fit with a Valjoux 7750 movement. It measure 44.5 mm in diameter and 15.7 mm in height.

The Movement

The watch is powered by the 69380 IWC-manufactured calibre. The chronograph movement with a classic column wheel design has both a chronograph function and a display for the day and date. The pawl-winding system winds up in both directions and has a power reserve of 46 hours.

The ceramic color “Lake Tahoe” is inspired by the “Service Dress White” uniform of the US Navy, but also by the contrasting winter landscape with the snow-covered peaks around the largest freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada. The elite pilots from the TOP GUN flight school often fly over this mountainous landscape. White ceramic is emblematic of IWC’s comprehensive ceramic expertise.

A soft-iron inner case shields the movement from the effects of magnetic fields. This TOP GUN chronograph is fitted on a white rubber strap with a distinctive embossing, whose color has been perfectly matched to the “Lake Tahoe” case.

The engraved titanium caseback on the TOP GUN Chronograph.

Concluding thoughts

The white colored ceramic provides a good contrast to the more common black ceramic variant of the TOP GUN line. While it is counter intuitive for a military themed watch to have such a striking color, the muted white tone does provide some subtlety to the otherwise extravagant color. The watch retails at US$10,700. More information on the watch can be found here.