IWC Top Gun Double Chrono Split Rattrappante IW379901

The rattrapante is one of the most useful of the prestige complications. It's the kind of thing you have in a timepiece when you want to announce that you know a thing or two about luxury watches. But that you also don't have time for the fiddling stuff of haute horlogerie: what I'd call the 'frilly' complications, tourbillons and the like.
A rattrapante is, simply, two chronographs in one watch. The name comes from a French word, rattraper, which means 'to recover'. It's different from a flyback chrono, which is a single chronograph that can be used to time multiple events within a single event (like laps in a race). A rattrapante chrono can be used to time two completely separate events at the same time. So, you can either time the individual laps with one chrono hand, while the other continuously times the entire race: or you can time your boiled eggs with one, and use the other one to cook your kedgeree to perfection.
That last example is not entirely tongue in cheek: Richard Habring, the watchmaker who created IWC 's double chrono complication, actually used his rattrapante to do just that: timing his breakfast eggs with the test model every Sunday in his Schaffhausen flat. Why bother with a plastic egg timer, when you can time your boil with a nine-grand pilot's watch?
Putting the rattrapante into a Top Gun pilot's case was a bold and clever move on IWC's part. In the main, rattrapante complications are only found in classically-styled watches: the Patek 5204, or the Lange & Söhne 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar. The watch geek looking for a double chronograph can expect enamelled dials, and all manner of 19th century frills and whistles. Or at least he could, until IWC decided to stick one in the body of everyone's favourite modern pilot's watch .
There's just something about the IWC Top Gun. It combines the best elements of a ton of tool watch styles: military design cues, a big legible face, and, in the case of the Top Gun Double Chrono Split Rattrapante, a sexy black ceramic finish and fabric strap. The 46 mm case, which wears more like a 44, is finished in that tough, slick ceramic: the overall effect is like strapping a small stealth fighter to your wrist.
Talking of stealth fighters, the design details on the twin chrono hands are spectacular. When at rest, they are superposed. Differences in their tail shapes mean that the superposed pair appear to have a red jet fighter sitting on their back ends. When the chrono is running, and the rattrapante mechanism is engaged, the rattrapante hand flies away from the running seconds chrono hand to reveal one large red jet (on the back of the rattrapante hand), and one smaller red fighter plane (on the tail end of the chrono hand). Presuming military watch nerds are the biggest market for the Top Gun Double Chrono Split Rattrapante, that's a touch of genuine inspiration.
Overall, the chrono on this luxury watch can time a 12-hour event, with as many individual rattrapante events as you like. The movement that creates the magic is the IWC calibre 79230: which is basically an ETA 7750 heavily modded with an IWC rattrapante kit (the one developed by Richard Habring, as noted earlier).
On paper, the IWC Top Gun Double Chrono Split Rattrapante is kind of an odd watch. It's apparently huge, and it has a complication that, while brilliantly useful, seems more in place on a 'traditional' watch. On the wrist, though, it's a work of genius. It feels much slimmer and tidier than the 46 mm (diameter) / 17.8 mm (height) measurements. It looks meaner than an F-117 Nighthawk. And it's a bargain, too. The Patek 5204 was released with a £250k price tag. You can pick up a Top Gun Double Chrono for just shy of £9k.
The tech specs: sapphire glass, water resistant to 60 m, titanium buckle, screw-down crown. Day and date are registered at 3 o'clock, running seconds at 9. Numerals and hands are lumed.
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Image Credit – Officialwatches.com vedere di piu replica watch e Chopard Mille Miglia