The Story of Tumkur Pilot

HMT Pilot Variants from Tumkur (Karnataka)

Pilots have been a legendary line of watches for HMT. There had, has and will have a fan following to this widely known and popular Pilot. It has been quite sometime since people commenting on this watch. I genuinely feel the reason behind this phenomenon is due to the supply and demand gap that has decreased. The Pilots has been produced in all factories of HMT starting from Bangalore, Chinar, Tumkur and Ranibhag. Pilots as all enthusiasts know is black pie pan dial with defected indices at 3, 6, and 9 position filled with lume along with the indices at 12 has been hand lumed. The pilot do have dauphine hands which is also lumed. This series bit of article address the Pilots produced by Tumkur factory in particular.  

The reason of choosing Tumkur factory is simply because it is know for producing Pilot variants other than the known black dial. It would also be of reasonable interest to the readers too. Tumkur factory has an unique distinction of producing handwinding and quartz watches. Some of the memorable quartz produced includes Roman moonphase (RGGL) and Moonphase quartz. I will try to highlight those in a separate blog later. This is article will focus on Pilots only. The first that might come to a enthusiast is why focus on the Pilot produced by Tumkur factory ? What's special in Tumkur factory that other could not do? The answer to this question lies in the dial variants of Pilot. Tumkur was know to be the most upgraded and updated factory of HMT Watches Ltd. which initially began producing mechanical then further diversified to quartz and also strap manufacturing. Black dial Pilot was definitely produced in Tumkur too which was similar to other factories but with distinctive qualities. In this article I have tried to highlight the White dial variants of the Pilot.

During the mid 90s Tumkur factory came up with a unique Pilot which was a mixture of Sona and Janata. It has the arabic numerals of Janata and guilloche pattern of Sona. The dial was a pie pan dial with a guilloche pattern at the center and raised arabic indices. The what had the same dauphine hands as that of Pilot BD. One of the earliest HMT Pilot was seen with a collector who had two of these wherein one had sword hands.

The First Edition of HMT WD Pilot (Internet Source)

  

First Edition Pilot (Internet Source)

The first edition WD Pilot can be identified by looking at the print next to indices 6 which depicts NR-4 (Which means Nippon Release - 4 (Tumkur Factory)). So it is concluded these were essentially manufactured for Japanese market and few of them were also released in Bharat. Incidentally these were also made in GP edition which had a unique case back. GP plated dauphine hands and raised indices on the dial was also gold plated. The unique feature was the 20Kt gold plating of the case and also mentioning of the same on the case back.

Case Back of Pilot GP (Note: 20Kt Gold Plated)

Pilot GP (Picture Courtesy Adheip)

Pilot GP (Picture Courtesy Adheip)

Pilot GP (Picture Courtesy Sachin Jayakumar)

These variants were totally forgotten by the HMT brotherhood. Until WUS displayed these variants. Later a project on WUS started the enthusiasm among the collector where in this variant of Pilot WD with Blue hands was initiated. Pilot WD blue hands edition was a limited edition of 500 with Blue dauphine hands with a Limited 500 etched on the press fit case back.

HMT Pilot WD - Blue Hands (Limited Edition)

HMT Pilot WD - Blue Hands (Limited Edition) Case Back

The limited edition pilot has a history by itself. The dials came from Tumkur factory and was assembled in Ranibhag factory. The case and hands were manufactured in Ranibhag. This watch has seen ups and downs of HMT. The watch by itself was a rage among collectors but the watch was produced under generator power in the factory since Ranibhag had not paid its dues towards electricity board. Finally the HMT team dial a remarkable work in getting this done. There are other stories too with respect to Ranibhag unit which I will touch upon later.  

This watch created such an environment that everyone started looking for these. Everyone was desperate for this variant and the prices skyrocketed. People got desperate and the franken market was there to exploit. Some of the fraken blue hands version shown. I too had one of these franken ones.

Franken Pilot Blue Hands (Pic Courtesy Sachin Jayakumar)

One person from Chennai had a fight with HMT. He asked reason why the watch limited to 500 only? Finally HMT made an attempt to make an unlimited edition of the same watch.

HMT later released the Pilot blue hands version with red second hands which was rejected and the second hands were redone with blue seconds on genset power in a short time and was released.

Pilot Blue Hands (Unlimited Edition)

The unlimited version of the Pilot had huge demand and still the aura remains. HMT saw a huge potential in this and hence they re-released the white pilot with steel dauphine hands.

The request of the limited edition went so high that resellers and parallel assembly line (franken watch makers) made a fake case back too.

Fake Case Back

 Finally HMT did realise the market demand involved and started making these in large numbers with steel dauphine hands too.

2014 Pilot WD Release (0231-B variant movement)

Pilot WD (NR-4)

This closed the chapter of manufacturing these Tumkur pilots. Untill recently many more variants came out from Japanese market and some unseen and unheard dials.
HMT has a picture in the Museum depicting the watches released by HMT for Japanese Market.

HMT Japanese Release from Tumkur Factory

The picture above it is pertinent to see a few pilot releases in Japanese market in the same lines of priya.

HMT Pilot Japanese (Pic Courtesy Raviprasad)

Pilot Japanese Edition (Pic Courtesy Raaj)

Pilot GP Yellow Dial (Pic Courtesy Manjunath Kulkarni)

Pilot Silver Dial (Picture Courtesy Sachin Jayakumar)

These are some Japanese versions of Pilot. Further we also got to see one edition of Pilot WD with Lume.

The lume dots on the outer circumference (Pic Courtesy Bipin Thakur)

Earlier last year the HMT community got to see the Pilot GP in a new avatar wherein the Black dial pilot has been released in its GP avatar. There we lots of discussion regarding the same.

Pilot GP (Pic Courtesy Tarun Agarwal)

Finally the last seen variant of Pilot also a version of Priya variant.

Pilot Checkered (YD) 

Few more variants of the Tumkur pilot for export market have been seen. These are the Pilot WD and Pilot. These were named RYON instead of PILOT.

It is believed that many more variants exists from the Tumkur factory and only time will tell. Till then that time I would close the Tumkur Pilot chapter.

Something for this great nation Bharat.

उत्तरं यत्समुद्रस्य हिमाद्रेश्चैव दक्षिणम् ।

वर्षं तद् भारतं नाम भारती यत्र संततिः ।।

"The country (varṣam) that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhāratam; there dwell the descendants of Bharata."

आ ब्रह्मन् ब्राह्मणो ब्रह्मवर्चसी जायतामा राष्ट्रे राजन्यः
शूर इषवयोऽअतिव्याधी महारथो जायतां दोग्ध्री धेनुर्वाढानड्वानाशुः
सप्तिः पुरन्धिर्योषा जिष्णू रथेष्ठाः सभेयो युवास्य यजमानस्य वीरो जायतां निकामे निकामे नः
पर्जन्यो वर्षतु फलवत्यो न आषधयः पच्यन्तां योगक्षेमो नः कल्पताम् ॥