When you gaze upon Christopher Ward watches and then look at the price tag, you crane your head towards the computer screen in disbelief; surely there’s a digit missing? But no, your eyes do not deceive you.

English watch maker Christopher Ward are asking just £350 ($572) for a Swiss-made chronograph or just £399 ($650) for an automatic with an almost identical or sometimes even higher spec to a leading brand timepiece which will happily charge you £2,200 ($3,600) or considerably more.

How do they do it? Basically by doing a lot less of the things that burn up so much cash for the traditional Swiss watch manufactures including huge celebrity endorsements, costly global dealerships, and high spending advertising and marketing budgets. Someone has to pay for all that, and that’s you, every time you set your heart on a top name brand.

Christopher Ward C11 Altus

So with this philosophy very much at the forefront, Christopher Ward has just added to its growing aviation watch collection with the C11 Altus series of automatic watches and chronographs.

Inspired by modern altimeters, their new C11 Altus watches are ready to take to the skies, or at least they will be from August 2011.

When you are flying at more than 700 knots in the middle of a storm, clarity is everything and Christopher Ward claim that the C11 Altus is the only watch to use non-reflective museum quality glass made from polished sapphire crystal. The watches feature oversize numerals, broad luminescent hands and a 42mm black dial, and guarantee maximum visibility whatever the weather conditions – blinding sunlight or pitch darkness.

Both the Christoper Ward C11 Altus Automatic and the C11 Altus Chronograph share the same rugged design and come on thick black or brown leather straps using the finest quality materials, and are hand assembled in Switzerland.

At these prices they should fly out of the door.

Editor: Since publishing this article the guys at Christopher Ward have chosen to rename the watch from the Christopher Ward C11 Altus series to the C11 MSL Mk I.