Lunar Pilot
the other moon chronograph
Bulova's 45mm quartz answer to a moon landing story: an HPQ chronograph at 262kHz, sapphire crystal, NATO strap, a genuine street-price bargain.
Scored by the published HypeScore formula from the specification and the street price. Never edited by hand, never influenced by affiliation. Read the formula →
Every chronograph with a tachymeter scale eventually gets asked to stand next to Omega’s Moonwatch. Bulova’s move is not to compete with it but to point at a footnote: on August 2, 1971, a Bulova chronograph was worn on the moon, and the modern Lunar Pilot line exists to keep that footnote in circulation.
The 96A225 is the plain version of that idea. A 45mm stainless case, a black dial with white accents, and Bulova’s own HPQ movement running at 262 kHz, eight times the frequency of an ordinary quartz caliber. That buys a genuine 1/20-second chronograph split across three grooved subdials, sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating, and 50 meters of water resistance. Bulova does not publish a thickness or a lug to lug figure for this reference, so this page does not invent one.
Forty five millimeters is large for a watch that ships on webbing. The box strap is a black NATO with a pin buckle, not a bracelet, and there is no clasp to speak of. That is the trade Bulova made to hit its price, and at the roughly $375 authorized dealers actually charge rather than the $595 list, it reads as a sensible one. Pay full retail and you are mostly buying the footnote.
I would not mistake this for a mechanical watch, and I do not think Bulova wants you to. Judged as what it is, a well specified quartz tool chronograph with a real story behind the name, it earns a look rather than a recommendation with no asterisk. The Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical sits at similar money and gives you a movement worth winding instead of a battery worth replacing; which one you want says more about you than about either watch.
- Bulova UK: Lunar Pilot 96A225 product page · Case size (45mm), HPQ 262kHz movement, 50m water resistance, anti-reflective sapphire crystal, black NATO strap and current GBP price, as published by Bulova. Bulova's US product page for this exact reference 404s to automated fetches, so Bulova's UK storefront is cited instead.
- Bulova Ireland: Lunar Pilot 96A225 product page · Corroborates case size, movement, water resistance, crystal and strap from a second Bulova regional storefront, plus current EUR price.
- Bulova US: Lunar Pilot 96K115 product page · Source for the collection's published heritage line, that a Bulova chronograph was worn on the moon on August 2, 1971. Cited only for that heritage claim; 96K115 is a different reference in the same collection and its dimensions are not attributed to the 96A225.
What reviewers say.
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Where to buy.
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