Review: Fortis F-39, a flieger watch that soars

I'm always surprised that Fortis flies a little bit under the radar on WatchCrunch. @KhronoKraze once posted several beautiful photos, and older Fortis models occasionally pop up in WRUW posts. But I think the brand deserves more recognition than it commonly receives. I've now worn a Flieger F-39 for around 18 months, and it has left quite an impression.

I've long had a soft spot for Fortis' combination of aeronautics/astronautics pedigree and straightforward tool watch aesthetics. The Spacematic watch launched in the early 1960s (and always kept the austere mid-century vibes of that era); the Flieger collection was introduced in 1987; and the Cosmonauts chronograph kept time on the Russian MIR space station and more recently on the ISS. But Fortis wasn't exactly at the sharp end of the innovation spear in the recent past: maybe a bit too content to rest on past laurels, and definitely struggling as a company.

My interest was really sparked when the ownership changed some years ago (Fortis is now an independent family-owned company). There are countless horror stories of investors sweeping in to "rescue" a storied brand, only to make it dull, bleed it dry, and piss on the carcass. Thankfully this is not one of those stories. I have no knowledge of what goes on inside, but on the outside the changes have been noticeably good. Fortis is in the middle of a multi-year collection revamp, redesigning each watch while resisting the urge to produce yet another homage watch or simply to excavate a model from the company archives. I also appreciate that they are quite honest about their production processes, which follow the traditional Swiss model: the manufacture of most parts is outsourced to other local companies, and the watches are then assembled, QC'ed and tested at the Fortis building in Grenchen. Most recently, however, they developed and tested their first (?) in-house chronograph movement.

The Flieger was one of the first watches to come out of this revamp. I was never interested in "classic" type A or type B flieger dials, but I'm a convert to the F-39. The luminous bricks and the raised minute track give a three-dimensionality to the dial that most flieger watches lack. The inward-sloping 12-hour bezel is great for tracking a second time zone: the F-39 is really an undercover GMT watch. The orange accents (and the orange "13" on the date wheel) are a Fortis tradition, and they're just strong enough to leave an impression without overwhelming the dial. The case is brushed, and finished well. I do wish that Fortis had better aligned the signed crown (the Fortis logo is rotated around 250 degrees when the crown is fully screwed in), which is a slightly conceited complaint about a tool watch but also not unreasonable at their price point (just over $2000 on the leather strap, which isn't exactly cheap).

The classic Fortis aesthetic is a combination of black dial with green luminova; I opted for the midnight blue dial instead. This makes the watch slightly less "tooly", but I prefer this model. Depending on the light, the dial can go from almost black to a rich blue in an instant. More recent releases drop the orange accents entirely and introduce a petrol green dial. I read somewhere that those newer models are more "grown up", but that unjustly infantilizes the original releases. This is very much an adult watch, built to be chunky, legible, and durable.

Apropos durability: The watch is very well built, full stop. The bezel has solid clicks and no back-play; the winding and hand-setting are crisp; the drilled lugs and screw bars make strap changes a breeze. 200m water resistance and a screw-down crown mean that I just don't worry about moisture. The strap is probably the best leather strap I have used, hand-made in Hamburg from thick but remarkably soft leather. I've never used the bracelet, but it seems to be well-liked.

On the inside is a Sellita SW-200 automatic movement, which Fortis has re-designated as UW-30. I wish we could stop inventing new names for old things, but hey: the marketing folks need to earn their daily bread, too. I assume they are also responsible for inventing the term "synchroline" to describe the orange accent between 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock so that "within a ±5 second range the pilot can now adjust to his teammates." I mean, sure, whatever. As far as I understand, the innovation that made pilot synchronization feasible was movement hacking (which this watch has) rather than a colorful line. But please correct me in the comments!

The movement comes with 38 hours of power reserve and has kept my watch reliably at +2 to +4 secs/day.

The F-39 is relatively tall at 13mm, which is particularly noticeable because the sides of the case are straight and the tallest part of the watch is the outer bezel (rather than a domed crystal, which makes some vintage watches wear slimmer than their spec sheet suggests). The lugs are probably too long: 50mm lug-to-lug on a 39mm watch is a tough sell. It works well on my 7-inch wrist, but I wouldn't want to wear this on a 6.5-inch wrist. That's just a personal preference, though. For what it's worth, the curved lugs nicely hug the wrist and make the watch wear very comfortably despite its undeniable heft.

It's annoying on paper that the F-39 comes with a 21mm lug width, although in practice I can't imagine any scenario that would lead me to prefer a third-party strap over the stock leather strap or the bracelet. Again, this strap is superb.

After 1.5 years of constant wear, the F-39 is still the only flieger that gets me truly excited. I really, really enjoy wearing this watch. It strikes the right balance between tooly legibility and conscious design, and it is built to last for generations. The recent Stratoliner releases from Fortis seem somewhat overpriced, but the F-39 fully delivers in a relatively crowded tool watch field.