# Swedish airplane clocks



## pompe (Jul 8, 2008)

*Swedish airplane clocks "edit" + recently declassified military secret*

A couple of weeks ago i was at a flight museum here in sweden and took some pics of some "swedish" airplane clocks (oki not so swedish since they r swiss made)










This one is clearly marked JAEGER dont realy know wich aircraft it is from










This one is more interesting i dont know who made it but it is marked swiss made at the bottom. It has a swedish dial instead of "elapsed time" it says "flygtid" crudely translated it means flighttime. as in time spent flying. Also acros the middle of the dial it says "L.Sundstedt Stockholm". i made a quick google search of that name but all i found was some old auction catalog with another military clock, probably it is/was a watchmaker redialing clock´s for the swedish armed forces. This clock came from a SAAB 29 here is a pic of it in a cockpit from the plane










And the airplane itself










This airplane is a SAAB S29C the spyplane version (dunno if thats the right english word it´s used to take high altitude photography) and the gentleman in the basebal cap is one of the original pilots. As a side note, this pilot actually owns my grail watch the Viggen lemania chrono i did not ask to buy it since it would have felt quite disrespectfull.

Some facts about the SAAB 29 "flying barrel" (called so because it looks like a barrel):

The first saab29 flew in september 1948 and it joined the swedish airforce in 1951.

The 6th may 1954 it got the speed record on a 500km track and thereby beating the previous record holder the american sabre (take that yanks !!)

The only time the saab 29 saw active duty was as a part of the UN operation ONUC in Kongo 1961 as a part of the UN fighter wing.

"EDIT" NEW INFO RECENTLY DECLASSIFIED !

Well for years i and the rest of the world tought that this plane was "made in sweden" but we where wrong. i have found some new info that used to be one of the swedish airforce most well guarded secrets ! The SAAB 29 was NOT made in sweden !!! actually it was made UNDER sweden 

No i am not joking, and oki it was not recently declassified more like 20 years ago but i did not know about it untill today, still it is a good story.

During ww2 the swedish goverment came to the conclusion that industries was a prioritised target for bombing and in 1943 they started to build a underground factory. when the war was over they had constructed a 21000 square meter factory 40 meters down in the swedish granite directly under the SAAB factory in linköping. And since the cold war had started and noone knew if war would break out again anytime soon they kept the factory a secret and that is where these planes where built. the factory was a complete separate unit from the other production line of saab with its own staff and restuarant hospital freshwater suply etc. The undeground factory was in use untill around 1990 and is now used for storage.


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## Crusader (Apr 30, 2005)

Very interesting!

I took the liberty of copying the post to the Pil-Mil Forum: https://www.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=336727


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## pompe (Jul 8, 2008)

thanks i had already done a post there pointing to this one


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## pompe (Jul 8, 2008)

added some new info that i think is so interesting this one deserves a bump !


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## Beau8 (May 24, 2008)

Pretty neat looking~Cheers! ;-)


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## Somewhere else (Feb 17, 2006)

Sweden used to have some very good clock factories. Hasselblad, the famous camera maker originally started off as a clock manufacturer as IBM did also. Interestingly enough, Jaeger LeCoultre also made cameras for a short while.


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## pompe (Jul 8, 2008)

Somewhere else said:


> Sweden used to have some very good clock factories. Hasselblad, the famous camera maker originally started off as a clock manufacturer as IBM did also. Interestingly enough, Jaeger LeCoultre also made cameras for a short while.


I did not know that ! Today we have sjöö sandström that uses the Bofors developed thermocompensated Quartz digital movement in one of their watches (only one in the world) originally used inside the "bamse" anti tank missile. And there is also the" work in progress" new Halda spacewatch that is quite interesting, so i say we still got it ;-)


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## Janne (Apr 16, 2007)

Thanks Pompe for the Link! Is it the same Sandstrom in those two companies?

BTW, you live on the West Coast, is the sea frozen?


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## pompe (Jul 8, 2008)

Janne said:


> Thanks Pompe for the Link! Is it the same Sandstrom in those two companies?
> 
> BTW, you live on the West Coast, is the sea frozen?


yes same sandstrom in both, and the sea here on the East coast is not all frozen, in some of the bays it´s frozen but the majority is open water


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