Longines Heritage Classic L28284532

The Longines Heritage Collection as we know it today sprang from what must have seemed an oddball suggestion at the time, posed to Von Känel back in 1987, long before retro-look, vintage-inspired watches were the rage — several years, in fact, before the Swiss mechanical watch began re-emerging as a successful genre from the mire of the Quartz Crisis. That year, it was pointed out, was the 60th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 historic non-stop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris aboard the Spirit of St. Louis — an aviation milestone for which Longines served as official timekeeper on behalf of the World Air Sports Federation.

Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh worked with Longines to produce one of its most historically significant timepieces, the first so-called Hour Angle watch, in 1931. The watch’s groundbreaking, rotating-bezel design allowed pilots and navigators to calculate their longitude during long-distance flights — a necessity in those pre-GPS days — allowing them to home in on their geographic location quickly, efficiently and accurately.