HMT Pilot Full Lume review

You have heard about it, you have dreamed of it, you almost bought it in black for a premium and then one day you finally found it....

This is the story of most of the owners of the pilot full lume. Till 2013, there were not more than 100 pieces around and this watch was like the big foot of watches. Then in 2014, HMT decided to bring watches from their Chinar factory to their Ranibagh factory. The dials of few of those watches were changed. Some of them were given these 'extra' pilot dials. As a result, these watches suddenly became one of the most common watches around and it lost it's collectors value significantly. Anyways, enough of my snobbish watch talks. Let's dive into the review...

CASE

The watch has a stainless steel case. My version is the redialed Chinar factory version, so it has a screw in case-back. The sides are unpolished and pretty rough but do not feel so when the watch is worn. The case measures approx.35mm diameter without crown and lugs, it is approx. 11mm thick including the crystal. The case-back says shock proof, water resistant, stainless steel, HMT 0398 india. The crystal is made of acrylic and is dome shaped. I broke the original crystal of my watch therefore mine has a replacement. I changed the original leather strap which was very thick and shiny to a thinner, more comfortable one.

The 0398 shows where the watch case was made and when. 03 means the watch factory 3 (Chinar). The 98 means the year 1998.

The side opp. to the crown, unpolished and rough. Notice how the lugs curve down to wrap around the wrist.

The side with the crown. This side too, is pretty rough. The crown is large and easy to grip while winding.

DIAL

The dial is matte finish with hand applied lume. The hand applied lume means that no two watch dials will be the same. The edge of the dial has markings to tell the time right down to the minute. This feature along with the lumed Arabic numbers gives this watch a vintage aviator's watch kind of look. The printing is not perfect but I can live with it...

A wrist shot taken with my phone, therefore pretty bad. My apologies..

Movement

The movement is the standard HMT 0231 Handwoud movement found in other mens' three hand time non-date mechanical watches offered by HMT. The same movement is found in my Akash, It has 17 jewels and parashock shock protection which works pretty well. Here is a picture:

This is the move movement of my Akash. The pilot has the same movement.

LUME PERFORMANCE

The lume of the watch does not last a lot. At max it lasts 20 minutes. Here is a picture: