Citizen Eco-Drive Blue Angels World Chronograph A-T

Look and Feel

Citizen Eco-Drive Blue Angels World Chronograph A-T is named after the famous Blue Angles squadron of the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps, and you can tell that from the first sight. Blue-and-yellow colored case and band. Subdial rims resembling aircraft instruments. But the very first thing you will notice is the complexity of the display, which seems piled with subdials, displays, markers and hands – much like airplane’s dashboard.

I’m not a pilot and I cannot tell how difficult is to get acquainted with the airplane instruments. But it took me less than 10 minutes to get myself accustomed to the seemingly complex dial. I found out that every subdial and every hand are on their proper place and the dial is actually easily readable.

The case is well made. It looks solid and reliable. The dark blue dial and bezel contrast nicely with the yellow highlights on the dial, on hands and with the yellow ring around the bezel. The quality of the printing is excellent. The crystal is made of scratch-resistant sapphire and has anti-reflective coating – another good thing. The luminous hands and markers are blue-green and are well visible in the dark.

The hands movement is very precise, with no slops. All of the hands are very precisely aligned to the markers.

The strap looks and feels great. It is made of polyurethane coated leather, with woven middle layer (which is visible through the decorative holes on the outer layer). The back of the strap is yellow – another nice touch. For those who will find the strap too colorful, the watch is also available on a bracelet.

The Citizen Eco-Drive Blue Angels is light – just 87g – a weight that is easy to forget. At 12.3mm thick, it’s very shirt-friendly and goes easily under cuffs.

Citizen Eco-Drive Blue Angels World Chronograph is an excellent choice for everyday watch. It is definitely not a dress watch, but you can wear it on every other occasion. It is also waterproof at 200 meters (660 feet) and is suitable for recreational scuba diving.

Functions and Features

Eco-drive and radio synchronization

This is an Eco Drive, radio controlled watch. The former means that you will never need to change the battery. The battery recharges itself when exposed to sunlight. Radio controlled means that your Citizen ED BA will always show the exact time and you do not need to adjust the time manually. The watch can receive time synchronization signal from one of the 5 specialized signal stations worldwide, and this is fully automated process. The coverage area of the signal stations, however, is limited. The time synchronization function will work only in USA (but not in Alaska), Mexico, most of Canada, most of Europe, Japan and most of China. Ever without radio sync the watch is accurate enough – it only gives a second difference every 3 days.

Chronograph, Power Indicator, DST, Day of Week

The dial comprises three subdials and a date window. The chronograph functions use the upper sub dial for minutes, the second hand for seconds and the lower sub dial for 1/20th seconds. The subdial at 9 o’clock is reserved for the 24 hour hand.

The subdial at 12 o’clock also shows the remaining battery power and indicates whether Day Saving Time function is on or off. The subdial at 6 o’clock shows the day of the week and is also used as to indicate the correct reception of the time setting radio signal.
When you press the lower pusher, the watch goes in status mode. Then the upper subdial will show the battery power level, the subdial  at 6 o’clock will shot shows if the last radio time sync was successful or not, and the second hand will point to the current timezone.

World Time

The world time feature is very easy to use. If you pull the crown out one click, the second hand will point to the current timezone and the subdial at 12 o’clock will indicate DST on or off. Now if you rotate the second hand to the desired timezone, the main hands will also rotate to the new timezone. The DST can also be changed manually by pressing the upper pusher once.

Tachometer, Speed Calculations and More

For me, this is the coolest feature of them all. I know that today everyone and their mom have same data easily accessible through various apps on their smartphones… but still (or, perhaps, exactly because of this) the idea of using your watch bezel for math operations somehow makes me gape in wonder every time I think of it.

You can rotate the bezel using the knob at 8 o’clock (it is not a pusher, although it looks like one). The calculations you can do using the rotating bezel, are:

– Tachometer
– Compass
– Elapsed Time
– Remaining Time
– Math operations – multiplication, division, ratios calculation
– Unit Conversions – volume, weight, distance, fuel consumption
– Time needed to reach a set distance
– Calculation of speed
– Calculation of driving distance
– Calculation of drive time
– Calculation of flight distance
– Calculation of flight time
– Yachting Function – determining the wind direction
There’s no need of giving a detailed description of these functions here. Citizen has assembled a special guide that explains each of the above functions in detail. They also have a guide, covering all other functions and features of the watch in greater detail.

Specifications

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