We could have designed the Special Watch For Aviators to be the perfectest pilot's watch since the Mark 11, but we did not have the means to turn the project into reality. After all, we were just a bunch of dedicated collectors, and in order to make it happened would need an Executive Sponsor within the corridors of power at IWC.
Enter Andrew Thomas, who also attended that dinner on 8 October 2015, and who had a good relationship with IWC's upper management, especially the local Swiss Retail market team. Sometime during the design process, Andrew offered to have it made if we got 20 committed collectors to pay for the watch in advance, which we did, with some lobbying amongst ourselves.
I'm not gonna go through every twist and turn of the two years that took for the SWFA to be produced, but suffice to say that Andrew did an excellent job and that we are grateful. Without him the SWFA would have stayed just another project and on paper.
Once Andrew took control of the project, however, the LE of 20 turned into an LE of 27, for reasons known only to him, and the initial intent, that the watch was to be exclusively for dedicated IWC collectors, was lost. Some collectors opted out for various reasons, and Andrew filled the gaps with his contacts.
Like everything in life, we got what was possible, which was still pretty, pretty good.
On 14 November 2017, the Special Watch for Aviators was ready for pick-up by the collectors at the IWC boutique in Schaffhausen. That informal distribution ceremony was followed by a memorable low-level flight on the JU-52 over the snow covered Alps and a wonderful dinner, all courtesy of IWC Switzerland, and arranged by Andrew.