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The Rolex GMT-Master was introduced in 1955 to help people crossing the globe read two time zones at once. Its later stories include Pan Am’s first non-stop New York–Moscow flight and Sheila Scott’s 1966 solo flight around the world—but those were separate episodes in the watch’s history, not one journey by one watch.
Why Rolex made the GMT-Master
As intercontinental air travel grew, pilots and other travelers had a practical problem: local time changed with each destination, while the time at home or another reference point still mattered. Rolex dates the GMT-Master’s introduction to 1955 and describes it as a navigation aid for professionals crossing the globe. Rolex’s aviation history places the watch in that context.
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Men Watch Pagani Design GMT Watches for Men Automatic 40MM Date 100M Waterproof Stainless Steel... | $155.00 | Buy on Amazon |
How it showed two time zones
The GMT-Master added a 24-hour hand and a rotating bezel marked for 24 hours. Together, those features allowed the wearer to read local time and track another time zone against the bezel. Rolex describes this as the watch’s central practical innovation. Rolex’s GMT-Master II history traces the feature into the modern successor.
From Pan Am partnership to an important flight
Rolex says the GMT-Master became the official watch of several airlines, including Pan Am. The company credits its partnership with Pan Am with putting pilots in GMT-Master watches and featuring Rolex in airline advertising. These are Rolex’s accounts of the relationship; the available sources do not independently establish how widely crew members were issued the watch.
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New York to Moscow, 1959
Rolex recounts that Captain C. N. Warren used a GMT-Master as a navigation aid on Pan Am’s first non-stop flight from New York to Moscow in 1959. The company attributes this sentence to Warren: “the flight itself was navigated by Rolex”. The quotation and flight account are presented here as Rolex tells them, rather than as independently verified flight-log evidence. Rolex’s aviation history
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Sheila Scott’s 1966 flight around the world
The “flew around the world” story has a distinct chapter in British aviator Sheila Scott’s solo flight. Rolex says she wore a GMT-Master when she departed Heathrow on 18 May 1966. She returned on 20 June, after 31 stopovers and nearly 50,000 km (31,000 miles), logging 189 flight hours over 34 days, according to the company. Rolex’s account of the flight links the watch to Scott’s journey; it does not mean the particular watch used on that flight also accompanied Warren, or that one GMT-Master made every trip in this history.
What the GMT-Master’s aviation history means
The GMT-Master’s significance is less that it was a substitute for an aircraft’s navigation systems than that it made two time references readable on the wrist. Its 1955 design addressed a recognizable need among people moving across time zones. The Pan Am and Sheila Scott stories show how Rolex connected that function with long-distance aviation.
Rolex names the GMT-Master II as the modern successor to the original GMT-Master. The lineage preserves the family’s two-time-zone purpose, but that continuity alone does not establish that current versions share the original’s full technical specification. Rolex GMT-Master II
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