The aviation line Longines launched in 2025 with black dials gains four matte blue references, two automatic and two hand-wound flyback chronographs.
Longines created the Spirit collection in 2020 around aviation, taking its cue from the pioneering pilots the brand worked with in the first half of the 20th century. In 2025 it added the Spirit Pilot and the Spirit Pilot Flyback, two more compact models with a stronger aeronautical character, both launched with black dials. On September 24, 2026, the brand presented them in matte blue: four references, two per model, on a steel bracelet or a rubber strap.
Technical Specs
**Longines Spirit Pilot (refs. L3.809.4.93.6 and L3.809.4.93.9)**
Steel case, 39 x 11.5 mm, screw-down crown and caseback, sapphire crystal, 100 meters. Matte blue dial without date, applied numerals and rhodium-plated hands with Super-LumiNova. Automatic calibre L888.4, 25,200 vph (3.5 Hz), 72-hour power reserve, silicon hairspring, COSC-certified chronometer.
Price: USD 2,700 on blue rubber strap and USD 3,100 on steel bracelet.
Longines Spirit Pilot Flyback (refs. L3.721.4.93.6 and L3.721.4.93.9)
Steel case, 39.5 x 13.4 mm, 47.4 mm lug to lug, bidirectional bezel with blue ceramic insert and countdown scale, box-shaped sapphire crystal, screw-down sapphire caseback, 100 meters. Matte blue dial with small seconds at 9 o'clock and 30-minute counter at 3 o'clock. Hand-wound calibre L792.4, column-wheel flyback chronograph, 28,800 vph (4 Hz), 68-hour power reserve, silicon hairspring, COSC-certified chronometer.
Price: USD 5,250 on blue rubber strap and USD 5,550 on steel bracelet.
The blue dials
ll four references keep the cases, numerals and hands Longines introduced last year and add a matte blue dial that cuts glare and keeps the silver numerals easy to read. On the Spirit Pilot, the dial is organized around a railroad minute track with small rhombuses at every five-second mark, and the central seconds hand ends in another rhombus. With no date, the dial stays symmetrical from 12 to 6. The Flyback splits its information between two facing counters and adds the blue ceramic bezel with a countdown scale, handy for timing an interval without starting the chronograph. The 20 mm rubber straps have a quick-release system, so switching straps needs no tools.
Two exclusive calibres
The Spirit Pilot runs on the L888.4, an automatic calibre exclusive to Longines that beats at 25,200 vibrations per hour. That frequency, slightly below the 28,800 common in current Swiss automatics, uses less energy and helps deliver a 72-hour power reserve, three full days off the wrist. The Flyback uses the L792.4, hand-wound and running at 4 Hz, with the chronograph controlled by a column wheel, the part that coordinates start, stop and reset. The flyback function lets the wearer reset and restart a running chronograph with a single press, without stopping it first. Longines designed it to time successive stages of a flight, released its first flyback model in the early 1930s and was granted the patent on June 16, 1936. Because the calibre is hand-wound, there is no rotor, and the sapphire caseback shows the full chronograph mechanism. Both movements use a silicon hairspring, which resists magnetic fields, and both are certified chronometers by COSC, the Swiss body that tests the accuracy of each movement.
Pricing in Mexico and Spain
Longines' official Spanish site lists the blue Spirit Pilot at EUR 2,600 on rubber and EUR 2,950 on bracelet, and the Flyback at EUR 5,100 and EUR 5,450. On the official Mexican site, the blue versions had not yet appeared by late September; the black ones are listed, with the Spirit Pilot at MXN 53,600 on rubber and MXN 61,000 on bracelet, and the Flyback at MXN 107,000 on leather and MXN 113,500 on bracelet. In the United States, the blue Flyback on rubber costs USD 100 less than the black one on leather, which makes it the least expensive version of that reference in the current catalog.
Automatic or flyback chronograph
For $2,700, the blue Spirit Pilot includes a 39 mm case with 100 meters of water resistance, an exclusive caliber with chronometer certification and three days of power reserve. The Flyback responds to another choice, that of the flyback complication, which implies a higher price and a thicker case, and which here comes with a column wheel and ceramic bezel. Manual winding is an advantage in this case: without a rotor, the chronograph remains at 13.4 mm, when an automatic caliber with the same function usually adds the height of the rotor, and retains the winding gesture, which some collectors look for precisely in an aviator's chronograph. Along with the color, the practical novelty of the series is that rubber strap, which the Flyback did not offer in its black version.
