Latest Review
October 14, 2024 
Our ongoing Enthusiast Spotlight series is all about uncovering passionate people who care deeply about the objects with which they surround themselves. For our latest installment, we spend the day with aviation enthusiasts and pilots Erin and Paul Hooker from Phoenix, AZ. These two young and ambitious aviators define enthusiasm to a tee. For them, flying has become an absolutely essential part of their live/work/play equation. Precision gauges and instruments are now more important to them as ever.
We strapped some of Citizen’s latest Promasters, including both Sky and Dive models, onto their wrists to get their first impressions and understand just how important having a robust tool watch is to their day-to-day.
Hey Erin and Paul! Thanks for taking part in our latest Enthusiast Spotlight. We’re super stoked to have our audience follow you two on your aviation journey. Could you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
We are Erin and Paul Hooker. We’re two pilots who have been on a path of getting our ratings over the past year and a half! This whole journey to get additional licenses and ratings has been with the intent to become as safe as possible in the plane in order to start exploring the US through the lens of aviation. We just finished two additional milestones—Erin getting her instrument and myself getting my commercial rating—and are now finally ready to start dipping our toes into more adventures fueled by aviation and flying!
Can you tell us how you both got into aviation? Was flying a shared passion from the start?
Paul: Well ultimately my intrigue in aviation started when I was really little. My grandfather used to be a Navy Pilot and then flew for Alaska Airlines for 40 years and growing up I remember having so many toy planes around, flight simulators, and talking with my older brother about how we were both going to be pilots one day. Fast forward to me being a couple of years out of college: instead of pursuing a career in aviation, I pursued nursing and found myself travel nursing all over the country. I had really lost sight of that childhood dream, thinking it was out of reach and too expensive.
While I was on one of those travel nurse assignments in Louisville, KY, I ended up having quite a bit of time on my hands—I didn’t know anyone or have family nearby. Late one night at work, I was brainstorming things to do in order to pass the time over the next three months on assignment, and I was reminded of this dream of getting my pilot’s license. After looking up all of the details, I found a flight school ten minutes from where I was staying and started lessons that weekend!
Erin: After Paul got his pilot’s license, we started doing fun weekend flights together in California. It was in the middle of Covid, so everything was pretty much shut down. But it was during this time we were taking fun flights, exploring, and traveling the coast of CA. Starting to do GA (General Aviation) trips like these is what piqued my interest in getting my pilot’s license. I saw how aviation provided the opportunity for more travels, adventures, and new experiences, and to me, that sounded fun!
Were there any fears you had to overcome to get your pilot’s license?
Paul: Honestly the main fear I had was not ultimately getting my license in my lifetime. I really didn’t ever think it was something that I could achieve growing up because of what the perceived costs associated with flying are.
Erin: When I first thought about getting my pilot’s license, I thought it was something that may be too hard for me to do. But as soon as I saw myself starting to have those thoughts, I let it become a challenge. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been really into mindset stuff post-college, and so every time I think “I don’t know if I could” or “I can’t do this,” I try to reframe my brain to think how I can. So overcoming those belief systems when I first started flight training or when things got hard was something I was always addressing.
Watches have a deep connection to aviation history. What role do watches play in your day-to-day life as pilots?
Paul: Very early on in aviation education, all pilots learn a navigation technique called dead reckoning. This form of navigating was one of the original methods pilots used to estimate their position on their route (if I’m not mistaken, dead reckoning was first used by sailors in the Pre-20th Century). So it works like this: by knowing our airspeed, magnetic heading, and our exact time along that heading we are able to pretty precisely figure out where we are, where we are going, and when we should get there. In the early days of aviation, having an accurate timepiece in the plane was vital to the safety of those onboard. When the wristwatch came out in the early 1900s, this finally allowed pilots to stay hands-free and focus on aviating—no longer fumbling around with their pocket watch.
Even though we now have tons of technology in our flight deck and are able to use GPS instead of Dead Reckoning, outside of the cockpit, our relationship with aviation still revolves around accurate timekeeping. A good example: before certain flights, we have to file flight plans or get a weather briefing from Flight Services. When we talk to them, we mention our departure and arrival times in UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) to stay accurate without any confusion. That ‘quick’ conversion from our time to UTC definitely doesn’t come naturally to us—so having an accurate watch on our wrist with UTC right there has been a game changer.
Erin: Having a watch also helps me with the busyness of our lives! It helps me stay on time, whether I’m in the air and have to return the plane in time for a rental or am on time for a meeting. It really helps me track my days so much better.
What’s been your most memorable flight together, and why?
Paul: This summer, we got to spend a few weeks up in Alaska for further training. While we were up there, we had an opportunity to fly in a Turbine Otter on skis around Denali and land on a glacier. Now even though we weren’t the ones flying, we did get to sit up front with the pilot—who was an old high school friend of Paul’s—and experience this flight with the best view. Not going to lie; it was one of the most epic experiences we’ve ever had.
What other tools/tech besides watches do you find super important as pilots?
Paul: Okay, a few essentials I try to never leave home without before a flight: high-quality (non-polarized) sunglasses, a noise-canceling headset, and a battery backup for my phone. None of these things are super glamorous, but they each have a place in safety. The sunglasses actually assist in being able to see aircraft around us easier, the headset ensures I can hear air traffic control and other pilots on the radios clearly, and the battery backup gives me peace of mind that if my avionics fail in the plane, I will be able to use certain apps on my phone to get home, without the phone losing charge.
Erin: We also use an app in the cockpit that helps us plan routes, check the weather, see other surrounding aircraft, and use many other useful tools to ensure our safety when we fly. So every time we go flying, we bring our iPad, which has that app on it. It’s become a staple for us.
Citizen’s Skyhawk A-T is a Limited Edition for the 35th Anniversary of Promaster. This watch, along with the Sikorsky edition are built for the modern day pilot. What were your first impressions of these Citizen Promasters and was it about them that resonated with you both?
Paul: The thing that comes to mind right away with the Promaster Sky models is how much they feel like a quality item and next is the radio-controlled feature that ensures ultra-precise timekeeping. Erin and I are constantly traveling. We have never had watches that switch timezones on landing like this. Having the watch auto update has been a game changer for me. It’s so nice to not have to switch it manually and it gives me peace of mind I am actually looking at the correct local time—a mission critical aspect of aviation.
Through this project, I’ve learned that Citizen created the Promaster collection 35 years ago to help people embrace their passions and push themselves to go beyond their limits. And yeah, I feel like these watches totally do just that.
Erin: I’m impressed with the pilot watches too. However, I was personally drawn to the fact that Citizen considers every wrist size within their Promaster line. I have a very small wrist and to know that they even create a Promaster my size is really cool. The Promaster Dive 37mm was right at home on my wrist, while still being a rugged watch.
What advice would you give someone thinking about getting their pilot’s license?
Paul: Our number one piece of advice that we tell literally everyone: go on a discovery flight! Most flight schools offer these things called discovery flights, where you get to go up in a plane with a flight instructor and experience flying the plane! They walk you around the plane, showing you all of the different parts, help you start the plane, and even let you fly it! Both Erin and I went on a discovery flight at the beginning of our education, and it is such an excellent way to get exposed to aviation before diving head-first into it!
When’s your next big trip, and what are you looking forward to most?
Erin: We have a bunch of smaller state-side trips throughout the remainder of this year, but we are planning a trip to Europe early next year! This will be a bit of a continuation of our travels this past summer to Southeast Asia where we explored GA trips in India, Thailand, and Malaysia. We are so looking forward to getting a taste of GA opportunities all over Europe and hopefully experiencing different parts of the EU from above!
SPECIFICATIONS
- 46mm Case Width
- 22mm Lug Width
- U680 Eco-Drive Movement
- Sapphire Crystal
- Atomic Time Timekeeping for 43 World Cities
- 1/100 Second Chronograph Measures up to 24 Hours
- Perpetual Calendar
- Dual Time Time Zone Timekeeping
- 2 Alarms
- 99-Minute Countdown Timer
- Digital Backlight Display
- Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) Display
- Power Reserve Indicator
