The Omega Speedmaster X-33 is the result of asking a single focused question: what kind of watch would you create, if you started with a blank sheet of paper, and set out to make the ideal wristwatch for astronauts and pilots, and which included all the specialized timing functions required by these professionals? You would want a watch without any extraneous ornamentation, and it would have to be highly legible, easy to operate under flight deck conditions, and extremely accurate and reliable. If you're being coldly rational about the whole thing, you would have to begin with the assumption that your watch is going to be powered by a quartz movement, and you'd probably decide on a combination of digital display of specialized timing functions, and analog display of the time (which gives you the best of both worlds, in terms of offering multiple functions, but also ensuring good visibility of the basic time display). You'd also want it to be light, comfortable, and easy to wear for extended periods of time ?a watch that's there when you need it, and which doesn't unnecessarily call attention to itself when you don't.
The Omega X-33 Skywalker is the most recent version of Omega's most technically advanced flight instrument.
You might not, after a lengthy process of refining your design based on feedback from both pilots and astronauts, come up with something exactly like the Omega X-33, but you would probably end up with something awfully close.
The X-33 Skywalker is the latest version of a watch that has surprisingly early antecedents. One of the first analog-digital Omega luxury replica watches was the now largely forgotten Seamaster Multifunction, which, like the first X-33, had a multi-function LCD display, and an analog presentation of the the time. That watch, introduced in 1986, was billed as "the watch with eight faces and a magic crown," and, like the X-33, it was also made of titanium (you could get it in a very cool looking two-tone titanium version as well, or steel). It seems to have been a relatively short-lived experiment for Omega, but it laid the groundwork for the presentation of the first version of the X-33, which debuted 12 years later, in 1998. That version's functions included the time and date (with a pre-programmed perpetual calendar) as well as an alarm, mission time with alarm, UTC with alarm, and chronograph.
The development of the X-33 included putting prototypes in the hands of astronauts and pilots and directly incorporating feedback on the operation of the watch, into production models. Testers included members of the Navy Blue Angels aerobatics demonstration squadron, as well as astronauts, including the Swiss astronaut Claude Nicolier. (One tester survived a bad crash-landing while wearing an X-33; the watch came through with flying colors as well.) The original version had an extremely loud-for-a-watch alarm (which it still has) which was especially designed to be clearly audible on the often noisy flight deck of the Space Shuttle. It's 80 decibels, which is about as loud as a vacuum cleaner. The X-33 was originally NASA-certified for Space Shuttle use, and the launch event, in 1998, took place at NASA's Johnson Space Center, and included a live video feed from the Mir space station, where two cosmonauts juggled first-generation X-33 replica watches in zero gravity. The current model is not NASA-flight certified but it has been certified for use in manned space flight, by the European Space Agency (ESA) and is being flown currently, aboard the ISS.
In power saving mode, the hands are zeroed but all timing functions continue in the background.
Like the Seamaster Multifunction, the first X-33 showed its digital functions with the characters arranged radially around the center of the dial, and the LCD display was backlit. It also had a fairly highly polished 60 minute turning bezel. Between that version and the Skywalker, a number of changers were made based on user feedback. The current version eschews highly polished surfaces of any kind, in favor of a low reflectivity matte finish, and the bezel is now matte black ceramic. Instead of the sometimes hard-to-read radial display, the current version places all digital display information in neat horizontal rows, and the movement has had an upgrade, to the caliber 5619, which is a high-precision thermocompensated quartz movement (the single biggest cause of undesirable rate variation in quartz replica watches is changes in ambient temperature, so high-accuracy quartz movements generally have some form of built in temperature compensation as well).
ADVERTISEMENTTo optimize battery life, there's a low-power mode; the LCD display shuts down, and the hands move to 12:00. In this mode, all timing operations continue; entering this mode is as simple as pulling out the crown (which has knurling especially designed to make doing so easy even with gloves on). There have been several versions produced in recent years, including an X-33 regatta timer.
A wide range of timing functions make the X-33 highly versatile.
Operating the watch for the first time is a daunting experience, but with practice, and much to my surprise, it becomes more or less second nature (though I'd always want to keep the manual handy). The crown allows you to give control inputs by pulling it out, pressing, pressing twice, or pressing and holding. The top pusher on the left is the "favorite function" button (for quick access to your beloved Phase Elapsed Time 2, for instance) and the lower left pusher can be used to activate the backlight, turn off an alarm, or enter and exit various programming modes. The two buttons on the right function, in chronograph mode, intuitively; the top is start/stop, and the lower, split time or reset to zero. In programming mode, the top button increases, and the lower decreases, the selected value. Once you have committed which button or crown does what, to muscle memory (which doesn't take nearly as long as I thought; a couple of hours of fairly desultory playing around with the various settings did it for me) it's actually a quite easy watch to use.
In chronograph mode, the right hand buttons start, stop, and reset exactly as they would for a mechanical chronograph.
Functions include quite a few that will be useful to you even if you are resolutely earthbound, and several which are perhaps a bit more aeronautics and spaceflight specific. The watch supports a display of local time, as well as a second time zone, and there's a separate UTC function. Three different alarms can be set, and there is a pre-programmed perpetual calendar as well as a chronograph, and countdown timer ?the countdown timer is rather interesting; it can count down a specified time interval, and it will also show how much time has elapsed since the end of the countdown.
Mission Elapsed Time is the most space-flight specific timing function of the X-33.
The most spaceflight-centric functions are the Mission Elapsed Time function (MET) and Phase Elapsed Time (PET) functions. Mission Elapsed Time is, for a manned space mission, the elapsed time since launch ?it's an important number to track because the scheduling of many mission-critical events is based on it. The ISS is an exception ?since it's a permanent space station, it uses UTC (although this can change; station clocks were reset to MET when Shuttle crews were on board, to make synchronizing events easier). Phase Elapsed Time allows you to count down to certain specific events within MET ?for instance, if you're on the way to Mars and you know that at MET 35/21:28:32 (35 days, 21 hours, 28 minutes, and 32 seconds) you have a critical scheduled sewage dump, you can set a PET timer to notify you when that phase of the mission has been reached. Up to three PET timers can be set, and the reference time needn't be just MET ?you can use UTC, or either of the two time zones, as well.
The case is 15.1mm thick but the titanium construction keeps things wearable.
The caseback has large apertures to allow the alarm to transmit sound more efficiently.
At 45mm in diameter, it's a very big watch but the all titanium construction means it wears very lightly ?it ain't no Concord Delirium, but it's still light enough that you're not especially aware of it when you're not interacting with it. Of course, in its intended operating environment, it doesn't weigh anything at all but a more massive watch might, even in free-fall, have enough extra inertia over the X-33 to feel more cumbersome. If I ever get a chance to find out, you all will be the first to know.
Time display in the dark, courtesy Super-LumiNova.
Low light visibility is excellent. The backlight is comparatively dim (at least relative to some other LCD backlights I've seen) however I suspect this is a deliberate design choice, to optimize battery life. It's more than sufficient for the various functions to be read, especially by a dark-adapted eye, so when you're being hunted through the dark maze of corridors of your crippled Mars spacecraft by Mars monsters that have emerged from the interdimensional darkness below the famous Mars pyramids, you'll still be able to see when it's time to perform that second critical sewage dump.
Big numbers for the case dimensions, but it's light and comfortable on the wrist.
The mechanical Moonwatch does do one thing that the X-33 doesn't ?functionally, that is, which is work for extended periods during EVA, when severe temperature swings would play havoc with with LCD display and quartz oscillator. Emotionally, the mechanical Moonwatch and the X-33 each do a lot of things that the other doesn't as well. The X-33 is about as pure an expression of a modern, tool-watch ethos as there is and while there are cheaper multifunction quartz analog-digital replica watches (Casio makes a slew of G-Shocks that fit the definition, to point out one obvious example) it's also true that the combination of features the X-33 offers ?aerospace specific timing functions, optimized power management, and that extremely loud alarm, to pick just three ?make it a unique offering in the modern tool-watch landscape. It's had a long and respectable history of being flown as well, by both aviators and astronauts, and while from a civilian watch enthusiast perspective, it's a very niche product, it sort of has to be that to be true to its purpose. I wouldn't have it any other way.
The Omega Speedmaster X-33 "Skywalker" ?case, 45mm x 15.1mm, grade 2 titanium, sapphire crystal and titanium caseback with apertures for alarm. Water resistance 3 bar/30 meters/100 feet. Two-way rotating ceramic bezel. Movement, Omega caliber 5619, thermo-compensated quartz caliber with MET, PET, UTC, chronograph, calendar, time and date, and triple alarm functions. User selectable power-saving mode. Price, on matching titanium bracelet, $5,900. Find out more at Omegawatches.com.
Omega Omega-speedmaster Omega-x33