We take to the skies on this episode of the Dogwatch and speak with Abingdon Mullin, who is a wide-ranging pilot who also started a watch company. When Abingdon became a working pilot, she wanted to reward herself with a pilot’s watch but couldn’t find one that was a good fit for her wrist. So she decided to make one herself. In this conversation we discuss Abingdon’s life as a pilot and her adventures from Alaska to the Caribbean in a host of different aircraft. We then discuss how she came to the idea for Abingdon Co. Watches, their design aesthetic, and the range of their watch offerings from pilot watches to racing watches to dive watches. We also save a bit of time to hear about the efforts of the Abingdon Foundation as well.
Our feature today is Bessie Coleman, the first African American and Native American to become a civilian pilot. Born into a family of sharecroppers in Texas, Bessie eventually moved to France to complete her pilot’s training. She returned to the US to work in stunt flying until her death in a airplane accident in 1926. Bessie was a true pioneer.
Abingdon Mullin Transcript
Michael Canfield: Hello. This is Michael Canfield, and thank you for joining us today on The Dogwatch. The Dogwatch is an evening shift of early or late duty or the people who undertake it. This Dogwatch, which considers the natural world and the things that help us experience it, from dogs to watches and everything in between. Ultimately, it’s a place for us to go wherever curiosity takes us. We take to the skies on this episode of The Dogwatch and speak with Abingdon Mullin, who is a wide ranging pilot who also started a watch company. When Abingdon became a working pilot, she wanted to reward herself with a pilot’s watch, but couldn’t find one that was a good fit for her wrist, so she decided to make one herself. In this conversation, we discussed Abingdon’s life as a pilot and her adventures from Alaska to the Caribbean in a host of different aircraft. We then discussed how she came to the idea for Avenging watches, their design aesthetic, and the range of their watch offerings, from pilot watches to racing watches to dive watches. We also save a bit of time to hear about the efforts of the Abingdon Foundation as well. Our feature today is Bessie Coleman, the first African American and Native American to become a civilian pilot. Born into a family of sharecroppers in Texas, Bessie eventually moved to France to complete her pilot’s training. She returned to the US to work in stunt flying until her death in an airplane accident in 1926. Bessie was a true pioneer, and with that, let’s turn our attention to our conversation with Abingdon Mullin.
Abingdon, thank you so much for joining us today on The Dogwatch.
Abingdon Mullin: Thank you, Mike, for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Michael Canfield: So I understand that you’re able to pilot something like 80 different models of aircraft from, say, a Piper Cub float plane to an Airbus 320. You also like race cars, scuba dive and climb mountains. Given this uncommon level of mobility, where do we find you today? Abingdon Mullin: Well, currently I am physically located in Las Vegas today, but that could change by the end of the week. I did just get back from Nashville and I was at the Women and Aviation conference and landed about 10:00 p.m. Last night back here. So, yeah, I do like to travel, but I’ve always said that the world is like a playground and you should never just play in the sandbox. You’ve got monkey bars and slides and all sorts of other things to go visit, so forth. Michael Canfield: So how was the conference? What’s the focus there? I know from your other writing and interviews that you’ve done, it seems like women in aviation is a population that’s growing but also relatively small. Very. Yeah.
Abingdon Mullin: Well, ever since women began flying, which was pre Emilia Earhart so early 20th century, we had always about five to 6% of those that held pilot certificates were female. And that unfortunately, today has only risen to about seven and a half percent. So the numbers really have not changed over the last century. But that said, that means there’s about just under 30,000 certificated pilots in the United States that are women. And this conference that I was just at about four to 50 people attend. Every year it’s a floating conference. So this year it was in Nashville. Next year it’ll be in Long Beach. And it’s women from all aspects of the aviation industry. So you’re not just talking to pilots, you’re talking to air traffic controllers, flight attendants, dispatchers mechanics, all sorts of different aspects of the whole team of people that make an airplane get into the air, right?
Michael Canfield: Yeah. And you mentioned Amelia Earhart, and obviously, I don’t know if it was your first watch. I’ll ask you about that, but Amelia Earhardt obviously is an icon. Was she someone that you found inspiration in? Is she someone in your company who people find inspiration? I just wonder where she fits for you.
Abingdon Mullin: For me personally, she’s definitely one of the ones who brought light to women in the field. But she was one of many. And though she’s by far the most well known female pilot, she’s no longer in modern history. We have so many more women that are into the aviation. Jeff Bezos just had his Blue Origin flight and brought Wally Funk, one of the original. What were they called? I think they were called Flats females learning astronaut training. I could be wrong on how that acronym stands for. But Wally Funk has been trying to get into space since she was in her 20s, and she was over 90 years old last year when she went into space with Jeff Bezos. And you saw her all over the news. And I saw her last week at the women in aviation conference. And she probably has more energy than I do. And a woman is like on a natural Red Bull kick all the time. I absolutely love seeing her every year at the conference. And with Amelia Earharth, I think she really did set a great foundation for women to be recognized as pilots. But think about Bessie Coleman. She’s the first African American pilot. Not first African American female pilot, the first African American pilot. And she was a hairdresser in the United States when she heard about flying. And the only place that would teach African Americans was France. So not only did she move to France, but she learned French in order to become a pilot and then came back to the United States and did air shows until she fell out of an airplane because they didn’t have seat belts. That’s how she passed away. It’s incredible. There are some women out there that just she fell out in a loop, literally crazy. And that is not the only person really total hardcore. Yeah. She’s not the only person that has had accidents like that in the early days of aviation. But when you think about aviation back in the early 20th century, I’m a bit of a history buff on it. I really enjoy it. That was the event that people came out to by the hundreds of thousands. It was like Super Bowl, American football. It was not as popular as aviation was back then. Aviation was what brought people out. So when you had like the powder puff Derbys and you had all of those transcontinental races and the people like Lindberg trying to go across the Atlantic and just all of those different achievements that people were wanting to see, they would come out to the airport to watch an aircraft launch, and it was tough thing to do. So, yes. Did those people create a world that I’m able to live and thrive in today? 100%. But the people that inspire me are the ones that are breaking barriers right now.
Michael Canfield: And I wanted to ask a couple of questions about sort of your history as a pilot and your way of getting into the industry and the craft of being a pilot. Were there some of those people, women that is that inspired you along the way? Like, I know you have talked about starting an interest in flying at the age of 14, so quite young. But part of the problem I think you’re trying to address is that if a young girl were interested in being a pilot, are there people she could look up to and say, oh, that’s what a pilot looks like. That’s a woman. Right. Which, again, is something that now there may be a few more people, but I’m wondering for you, when you were getting into it, did you look to certain women that were role models or heroes, or was that pretty hard to come by?
Abingdon Mullin: Well, when I did hear about flying and I’m the only pilot in my family, so I heard about it in high school from two men. They were flight instructors at the local flight school in Burbank Airport. Today, Burbank doesn’t even have flight schools anymore because it’s too busy of a commercial airport. But at the time, they did. And I hadn’t seen my first woman as a pilot until I was 22 so many years later, eight years later, and I got my private pilot rating at 22, and I joined a group called the 99s.. It’s a women’s pilot group. It was founded by Emilia Earhart and 98 other women. So that’s why they called themselves the 99s. And that was when I was introduced to the first women that flew. So it wasn’t until eight years later. But when you’re raised by parents who just make it a foundation of your life to say that you can go out and do anything, you just got to figure out how to do it. I never really thought that women couldn’t fly just because I hadn’t seen one. I mean, an airplane doesn’t know. Right. Clearly, a man or a woman behind the control. So why would it care, right. Even though I hadn’t seen any women doing it, I figured, of course, they were going to be somewhere.
Michael Canfield: Yeah. It’s interesting, too, that you mentioned how different mindsets are. It’s fortunate that you have that mindset. And again, for people who have that, that works. And for people who might not have that and would really benefit from people, especially women, being role models, it’s great that they’re becoming more and that there’s this group called the 99s, which I didn’t know about. So I wanted to ask a couple of questions, sort of on your pilot resume, because as I learned more, I became interested in you and learned about Abingdon watches, and I thought it was really fascinating and beautiful watches, et cetera. Have to learn more. And as I learned more about you, I realized more and more that you’re a legit pilot. You know what I mean? I hope that doesn’t sound funny, like I didn’t assume anything, but you can imagine. Well, who is the person who started it? Well, it might have just sort of been a recreational pilot or whatever, which would have been fine. So I want to ask you a couple of questions about this. I learned something which I hadn’t really known about being a ferry pilot. And could you describe a little bit about what a fairy pilot does? I heard you tell a sort of near miss story where it sounds like you almost kind of had a pretty serious problem out in the Pacific on the way to Hawaii. But what is that aspect of your experience and what you do?
Abingdon Mullin: So ferrying is really my joy. I’ve done all types of flying from just your general aviation rent assessment, fly it around to maybe go for that $100 hamburger in the next airport over in the next town, all the way to airline flying, corporate flying, and then ferry flying. And ferrying is where you are delivering an airplane. So, for example, Mike, if you were wanting to purchase an airplane, you’re not going to go to your local airplane lot and go pick the one out that you like. Like you do a car, you would search online, and the airplane that really is the one for you that meets your mission might be located in the Maldives, or it could be located in Australia. So you are a very busy person running person running a very successful podcast, and you’re teaching and doing all these different things. You don’t have time to go to the Maldives to go pick up your planes. So you would hire somebody like me who has experience picking up a variety of different kinds of airplanes. I can be insured because of the amount of airplanes I’ve flown. And I would bring it to you because I know how to fly internationally. I know how to operate the aircraft that you want and there’s only one type of airplane that I just don’t have any experience. Well, I take that back. It used to be until last summer, but that’s the Boeing line. So I did ferry a Boeing 747 from San Bernardino, California, to Germany by way of India last year. And so that’s the first Boeing I’d ever flown. And it was with other pilots that were PIC, which is pilot in command rating rated versus SIC, which is a second in command. So I would have to fly with PIC. You’re not able to go just jump in any airplane and go unless you have valid experience. But I’m closing in on flight time, like you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, and about 80 different airplanes. So there comes a point where you can almost jump into any smaller aircraft, turboprop and figure it out with a couple of trips in the pattern, as they call, which is just to take off in a landing. So you take off from an airport, you turn right around, and then you land, and you can kind of get the hang of it as long as you do a little bit of a checkout before you launch. And it sounds like if you’re carrying Boeing from one place to another, you have several pilots, et cetera.
Michael Canfield: That’s a pretty low stakes thing. But it sounds like you also have done a lot of ferry of smaller planes. Right. Where you would be the only person in the plane. Is that correct? Abingdon Mullin: That is correct, yes. And most of those are transpacific. So since I am here out of Las Vegas where I’m based, I’ll take it over to Santa Barbara, usually as a launch point to Hawaii or Oakland. So those are the two points. If you look at a map that if you draw the closest distance line, which is still over 2000 miles to Maui or Honolulu, then that’s where you launch from. And I’ve probably done about 30 Pacific crossings in small airplanes.
Michael Canfield: That’s intense. Yeah. I just have to say, just getting in a plane. Right. That’s just you and heading out into the ocean is something very different than when you get on a big plane with a couple of pilots. I mean, maybe it’s just my own perspective.
Abingdon Mullin: Clearly, you’re absolutely correct. It is very different. And also when you’re flying that long, some of these flights are my longest one is 18 hours, and you’re operating at about 130% over the maximum gross weight that the aircraft is certified for. So I’m carrying so much extra fuel that I’m literally flying a fuel tank. And that’s not exactly the safest condition. So you really got to be a conservative pilot and know what you’re doing, have experience. This is not for the weak minded. I might have a death wish, but it’s a lot of fun. And I like the challenge. Michael Canfield: So one more thing about that, because I’m just curious, how does that work in the sense that if it is over what it’s rated, you’re putting so much fuel in, is it illegal, is it against policy or how does that work?
Abingdon Mullin: So the FAA is very involved. They issue what’s called a special ferry permit. And so what they’ll do is they will inspect the aircraft, see how the extra tanks because typically we’ll remove the seats and then we’ll put in ferry tanks which are depending on the airplane, either a large aluminum box like a tank or something that’s like a very thick trash bag and has a fuel nozzle attached to it. They call it a turtle pack. Oh, my God. Not at all. And so you would fill up these tanks, they call them aux tanks, auxiliary tanks, by removing the seats and shipping those to the final destination so that you have the space for the fuel tank which is sitting right next to you in the flight deck. And once the FAA comes out so it looks good, everything is connected fine. Your center of gravity is not all over the place. You’re going to be able to operate. They will give you allowance to do this one particular flight to wherever its destination is being that much over the gross weight.
Michael Canfield: So I’m just trying to wrap my head around this. So not only do you say, okay, I’m going to take this little plane by myself out into the ocean for a couple of thousand miles or whatever it is on my own, but I’m going to sort of strap in several glorified garbage bags with explosive liquid next to me.
Abingdon Mullin: You know, Mike, when you put it like that, seriously, I’m just trying to understand and that doesn’t bother you? You’re like, okay, this is fine. I never told the airplane it was over water. So if it’s okay with the plane, it’s okay with me. And I mean to say I definitely have had a few puckering moments over the water, but I’ve never put a plane in the water. I’ve always delivered an airplane safely. And I will fly the airplane on a test flight for about 5 hours over an airport, testing every fuel tank, testing the HF radio that’s also been installed, testing the systems, looking at my oil pressure, my oil tents as I run it at a high power setting, as I bring it down to a low power setting, making sure that idle still stays, that the engine doesn’t cut anything like that. And I test it for a solid amount of time before I launch. So once you do all the checks and balances, your risk mitigation is pretty low. And again, it’s coming from someone who hasn’t. Once you have that experience, you I’m sure get more comfortable, more confident, et cetera. But it just does sound a little terrifying. Sounds a little crazy. Yeah, well, it’s just something to get used to, I would think so.
Michael Canfield: Another question. You’ve also been a demonstration pilot. I understand you worked for aircraft company where you would fly planes for perspective of buyers. And I’m curious, what does it take to make a sale on a plane? I know you’ve done sales to sort of finance your flight school, etc. And so you are in depth at making sales, but what’s your role in being a flight pilot in making the sale? Do you have an active role or is it just flying people around?
Abingdon Mullin: It kind of depends on who I was working for at the time. And even when I ferry the plane at this point, the person has already bought the aircraft, so they’re pretty sold on it. But when I do deliver it oftentimes I’ll do like a checkout flight with the new owner and show them their new toy. So the biggest thing that you want to do this is exactly like how you test drive a car. You get in the driver’s seat, the person gets next to you and just shows you all the bells and whistles and you feel like a million bucks when you’re driving around this brand new truck that you’re interested in or this brand new sports car that you’re interested in or whatever the vehicle is that you’re shopping for. And the same thing with the plane. If I am demonstrating it to somebody, then they’re sitting in the captain side or the left side. I’m sitting in the first officer, the copilot side. And you can control most airplanes. There’s a couple that you can’t control 100% from both sides, but most airplanes, 95% of them, you can fly exactly the same from either seat. So if they do something wrong or makes it a dangerous situation, then one neck chop and I’ve got the controls. If they won’t let go, and that’s something they teach flight instructors, but I won’t ever be able to overpower because I’m a whole five foot 6. But I can make somebody release the controls and I can take over at that point and we can get it safely. But no, for a demonstration flight, I’ve never had to do that, not even in flight instruction. I’ve never had to take over. And I just make somebody feel like they are captaining the ship and I show them how to captain the ship and if they like how it feels and it works for them, then usually the plane sells itself.
Michael Canfield: Wow, that’s awesome. And I just wanted to say now that I understand your role as being able to ferry planes and also teach people to fly. Once the Dogwatch takes off a little bit more and I become independently wealthy and decide to get a plane, I think I’m going to request that maybe you could help me learn to fly and all that stuff. We have the Dogwatch. I really want to get the De Havilland Beaver. I don’t know why, I just kind of fixated on that plane. And if there’s one, say up in Alaska, I’ll call you up and say, you know what? We finally made it.
Abingdon Mullin: Yes. On one condition. Mike, you have to come with me when we ferry it down. That would be awesome. Beavers are beautiful.
Michael Canfield: Yes. I don’t know that much about planes, but for whatever reason, I like the name and it’s just a cool plane. I understand it’s kind of a standard one. So speaking of Alaska, though, I remember reading John Krakauer essay about the rural pilots there and on the glaciers, et cetera. I understand you were a guest on the TV show Flying Wild Alaska, which is pretty cool. I have to say that you are a bit of a celebrity, and I’m curious kind of how that came about and what’s it like to fly in Alaska. What are the challenges and scenery different from other places?
Abingdon Mullin: It’s amazing. If you ever have an opportunity, if you’re in Alaska, do go on a flight. People learn how to fly before they learn how to drive. So everybody has a plane because a lot of times the roads are completely iced over, snowed over during a good chunk of the year. So the way to get to other towns is by airplane. And I was in season three of Flying Wild Alaska. It was three seasons long. The show on Discovery Channel and about I’d say the last half of season three, I was Ariel Tweto’s flight instructor, and I met Ariel at a big air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. They call it Air Venture. Oh, yeah, sure. And the Flying Wild Alaska cast with all their signing autographs and doing things well, I don’t have a television, so I had never seen the show, so I didn’t know who these people were, but I’m talking to Ariel and I’m like, oh, that’s cool. You’re on this show. What do you guys fly? And she was like, oh, we fly this and that. And she’s naming off some of the planes. And she said caravans. Well, like how you want to Beaver? My dream airplane is a caravan on floats. So when she said that, I was like, I go, yes, that’s my goal. That’s my dream. And she was like, really? You like caravans? I was like, oh, yeah. She’s like, and you’re out of West Coast because I live in LA. And I was like, yeah. She’s like, I need to take your phone number. We should hang out. So we hung out after the show a little bit. And then she learned that I was a flight instructor. And she asked me, she’s like, I got to go back up to Alaska. We’re going to go do some more shooting for season three. Would you mind? I’ll rent an airplane and you can go out and kind of scratch some of the rest off because it’s been a few months since I’ve flown. I said, sure, no problem. Let’s go do it on Saturday. So we rented the plane. We went out over the Long Beach practice area, and I just did some steep turns, some stalls, just did some slow flight, had a couple of take off, some landings with her. She’s a great stick. And that’s a term they use in aviation. If you’re a great stick, it means you’re a good natural pilot. Okay, so she was a good stick. She was a good student, listened well, and she was like, gosh, you’re making this really easy for me. I’m getting it. So I feel like I’m doing well. And I’m like, well, no problem. Anytime. Let me know if you want to go up again before you head up north. And what I didn’t realize is she was actually trying me out to bring me on the show. She pitched me to the producers, and the producers were which she is also one of the producers, but she pitched to the producers and said, I think I have somebody who can help me finish up my private. This is her name. She’s here. And we should bring her on the show. And they were like, oh, yeah. Okay, cool. No problem. All right, let’s go up to Alaska and go film. But they then contacted me secretly and said, hey, we want to surprise Ariel. Would you like to come up to Alaska and finish up her rating? And I was like, sure. So that’s how it all happened. It was so fun. It was awesome.
Michael Canfield: Yeah. So you got a chance to spend some time up there, make a new friend, do some teaching and contribute. That sounds like such a great Nexus of people and a life experience.
Abingdon Mullin: Right? It was so fun. And flying in Alaska, it’s like the world has been super sized. Mountains are bigger, Rivers are wider, animals are larger, trees are taller. And you really understand how tiny you are of a speck in this world. It’s beautiful. And so that would have been mostly small planes, right? Like sesame size planes for those that are just kind of two to four Cedars. Is that right? Exactly.
Michael Canfield: Okay, so we’re going to get to watches in a second, but I have to ask you a couple more questions because I couldn’t resist digging in a little bit. So you also went down south, right. And did flying in the sort of island hopping in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands. How is it different there as far as being a pilot?
Abingdon Mullin: Like, culturally and from a flying standpoint, that’s a good question. You’ve really done your homework, Mike. I love it. The Caribbean is well, the one thing you don’t have to contend with. There’s not a lot of icing going on. You’re not flying at high levels because you don’t really have any mountainous terrain. The Islands are built in two different ways. So it’s either a coral island or it’s a volcanic island. So Islands like Saber Rock or Dominica, those have very high terrain. St. Bart and those you really got to watch your approaches and make sure that you’re coming in accurately, or else you could end up in the side of a mountain. But then you’ve got the other Islands like Anguilla and that are flat for the most part. And those are really easy to fly in. I even think that St. Martin is one of the easiest ones. You know, the one that everybody sits on the beach and gets blown away into the ocean. Have you ever seen those photos where they’re, like hanging onto the chain link fence? Yeah. St. Martin isn’t even that hard to fly into. And they always say it’s like one of the top five toughest airports to fly into. No way. Go down to Dominica. That one’s going to kick your butt any day of the week. St. Martin’s a breeze, but the culture is very different. You either have the Caribbean, you’ve got the French, you’ve got the Dutch. You even still have British colonies down there. So you’re dealing with a lot of different cultures. It’s a very worldly perspective. But the neatest thing when I was down there, because in between my flying, I did it for about eight months. And I was moving around an airplane called the Saab. It’s a Saab 340 B, and it sits 33 passengers. And so they are those turboprops, which are like jet engines, but they have the propellers on the fronts. So you sometimes have flown in them, I’m sure, with Airlines. And it was neat because on the days I wasn’t flying, I was going and discovering different Islands. And there’s, I think, over 35 nations in the Caribbean. And I visited about 14 of them during my eight months. Wow. And I just had a blast. And you start to run into people that you might have met, maybe in Virgin Gorda, but you see them in St. Croix, and then you’ll go one weekend to Martinique, and then they’ll go over to Guadalupe the next weekend, and you can meet them over there. It’s fun, like low flying below 500ft over the water, just having a blast. It’s like a vacation the whole time.
Michael Canfield: That’s fantastic. It sounds like you also were in the Peace Corps in Africa. I was. And again, I think given the richness of your history, I feel like I do want to ask, what was your post? Where were you? Like, what did you do during that time of your life?
Abingdon Mullin: It was right after College. It was something I’d always wanted to do. I think it’s really important that each one of us live in an underdeveloped country at some point in our lives just for a different perspective. And I am an immigrant. I was born in England and my mother’s Mexican. And so I’ve always been raised in a very multicultural upbringing. And the one language I learned in high school and College was French. And I really didn’t know why I chose French, but I did. And so I was posted in the Peace Corps. They wanted to post me in a French speaking country. So they posted me in Cameroon. So I lived in a town south of Yahoo De, which is the capital within a town called Balmayo. And that’s spelled with an M as in Mike and a B as in Bravo for the first two letters. It’s called Balmayo. I live there as a business volunteer because the Peace Corps, they have different kinds of volunteers. You could be like an agricultural volunteer where you’re helping the farmers, a health volunteer where you’re working in the hospitals or in the health sector. And for me, I was a business volunteer, so I helped the commerce. And you may have seen products that are made by the women of a particular tribe, soaps or bracelets or things like that. And so that’s what I was doing. It was helping them build wealth and sustainability.
Michael Canfield: Fantastic. Well, all right, two more quick questions about you as a person, and then we’ll get on to the other features. Are you also a mechanic? Like, do you work on planes, too?
Abingdon Mullin: I mean, you kind of have to to an extent when you ferry them, because I have had mechanical issues in other countries where I had to fix something, but I don’t have my airframe and power plant certification. That is something I do want to get. But right now, no, I don’t have it.
Michael Canfield: I thought I picked up that you were like building planes or doing some of that kind of thing or kind of working under the hood stuff.
Abingdon Mullin: Oh, yeah, all the time. I love to tinker. Give me a wrench. I’ll tell you 30 things to do with it. Let’s go. Let’s have fun.
Michael Canfield: That’s awesome. Well, again, I think just having people get to know you a little bit about what the feature of your experience in life are really interesting. And I guess the last question is I mentioned before the other things you seem to like to do scuba diving, race cars, outdoor climbing, that kind of thing. What do you think it is that draws you to these kinds of pursuits? Like, is it personality? Is it experience? Why do those things speak to you?
Abingdon Mullin: It’s really my customers, the watch company, because when I started this company, I started it to make an aviation watch for women. I wanted an aviation watch myself. They didn’t make anything in 2006. So that’s what I started with. But the women that fly airplanes are often also scuba diving and racing cars and hiking and traveling and doing all these other things. So they started to ask me, are you ever going to come out with a dive watch? And I’m like, well, if I’m going to, I need to go dive and see what needs to be done with a dive watch that women would want. And when I formed the first test group to help me make our first dive watch, which was the Marina in 2014. The women were like, just please, if you can, don’t put a battery in it, make it automatic, and please don’t make it pink and purple. Can we throw some other colors in it? And I was like, oh, yeah, we could totally do that. So the Marina comes in every color of the rainbow, and it’s an automatic. After I made the dive watch, I wanted to see, okay, how does this work? How do we really use this in a real life experience out of the water. And when I started doing my first dives, it was on a pilot trip I was on in Central America with a bunch of pilots that were also divers. So it’s really my customers that have encouraged me to pursue these other activities.
Michael Canfield: Right. Wow. Well, that’s in some ways, it must have been a good problem to have. Oh, I guess I have to learn how to scuba dive. Too bad. That’s fantastic. And you’re starting to sort of tell a little bit of the story of coming to the watch company. And it sounds my understanding is that you weren’t a watch enthusiast or collector initially, that it was when you kind of became a pilot and got into the aviation industry, wanted a pilot watch, and there just wasn’t something that was appropriate for your wrist or kind of aimed at you. So can you explain kind of how that came about and then how quickly you pivoted into creating these?
Abingdon Mullin: Sure. Yeah. I really am a pilot who started a watch company. It’s not the other way around. And it is funny because the watch industry kind of looks at me and scratches their head a little bit because I wasn’t a collector or any of that. And now I feel naked without my watch on, as I’m sure most watch enthusiasts do. And with the way it started, because we kind of covered a lot of ground after high school, went to College after College, went to the Peace Corps, got back when I was 22, started my pilot’s license. And when I got done with the rating, they always say pilots should have three things, three good investments. And that’s your eyes, your ears and a backup. So your eyes, you want to have a good pair of sunglasses. I had a good pair of sunglasses, your ears, that’s your headset. I had a good headset. And then the graduation gift to myself would have been a watch, and that’s your backup. So an aviation watch has a slide rule and a six B, a flight computer. It’s called a bunch of different things. And it was kind of a backup to your avionics panel in the flight deck. So I went and searched on Google back in 2006, female pilot watches, and it was crickets. There was nothing out there. And they have some beautiful aviation watches that have been made, but at five foot six with really tiny wrists, those things just look like grandfather clock hanging off my wrist. It just wasn’t working for me. So I kind of gave up on the idea, to be honest. And then I was at a Christmas dinner with all of my 99s, the women that were part of my chapter in Santa Monica. And we were all talking about the different things we wanted for Christmas. What was our wish list? What do you want for Christmas? And one of the women at the table said, I’ve always wanted a pilot’s watch made for me, but they’ll never make it because we’re only 6% of the industry. It’s too few women. None of the watch companies ever see a market for that. And I said, that’s really interesting that you say that, because a few months ago I was looking for a pilot Swatch after I got my private and I didn’t find anything, I was curious about that and everybody kind of we were all talking about it and I thought to myself, well, what the heck, this can’t be that hard. They already exist. Let’s just make them smaller, make them more beautiful for a woman. You could wear it. Multiuse women are all about multi. Use the Jackie and the Amelia. The first two styles were a stopwatch with the flight computer and a Zulu watch with a flight computer. But they had Pearl dials, they had sorrowski crystals, they had smaller case sizes. So still legible, it was still able to be red Sapphire crystals, all the hard materials that are on existing aviation watches. I just made it a bit smaller and a bit prettier.
Michael Canfield: Yeah. Can you describe a Zulu what that means?
Abingdon Mullin: So a Zulu watch is typically a four hand watch. If you look at your watch that you’re wearing right now, you most likely have two or three hands on it. There’s the hour hand, the minute hand, and then the second hand. Well, a Zulu watch has an additional fourth hand, and that will tell another time on your watch. So it’s a 24 hours clock and Zulu time. If you look at the world, it’s split up into 24 time zones. There’s a few oddball places where they are only moved over by half an hour. But for the most part, the entire world has 24 time zones, and each time zone is separated by a letter. So the Greenwich Mean line in the UK that goes from the North Pole to the south is known as Zulu. And all flights operate. All weather reports operate off of Zulu time. So it’s very important for a pilot to have a Zulu reference. It’s also known as Universal Time Code, or UTC. It’s also known as GNT or Greenwich. Meantime, so in the watch world, people know them as GMT watches.
Michael Canfield: Right. Thank you. And again, I think that’s a great contribution for people who are interested in watches to have someone thoroughly explain that, because watch people, it’s like, oh, it’s a Rolex GMT Master II. They just sort of roll it off. But if you say it’s a Zulu, well, I think that’s used very much less. But it’s the same thing. Right. But that’s cool. It’s neat to think different people have a different concept of what that thing is for. Right. And kind of where it would come from. I think the GMT Master, some pilots, but I think it’s a lot of people who are people flying first class and then the pilots probably often will be maybe thinking of a pilot’s watch with more functionality on it. Yeah. Okay. So those are your first offerings when you made those couple of first offerings. Right. How can we look at those? Or I guess the question is, can we look at those and see any attributes, any aesthetic pieces that typify an Abingdon watch or characteristics of the brand, especially as you’ve brought it out more to say include dive watches and tactical watches, et cetera? Is there an ethos or an aspect that we could point to and say this is kind of what makes it an Abingdon watch?
Abingdon Mullin: Well, the logo is a dead giveaway.
Michael Canfield: Exactly. But maybe even more, you know what I mean? Like, what are the kind of design elements that kind of are typical or you like.
Abingdon Mullin: I always have what I call my SOPs, which is also an aviation term for standard operating procedures. So every single watch I’ve ever released has always had an inner rotating bi directional rotating inside chapter ring. Some people call it a bezel, but it’s underneath the Crystal. If it’s a dive watch or has a diverse bezel, that’s the only time you’re going to see a unidirectional outside rotating bezel ring. But every single watch, from the Compass of the Nadia to the flight computer of the Amelia to the world timer of the Marina, those are always going to be underneath the Sapphire Crystal. And the reason I do that is because most of my customers, we call them crew members. So most of the crew, they are using these in the ocean, in dirt, in outside environments, you don’t want to get grime and grit and grease and dirt and things like that underneath a rotating bezel because it’s not going to turn after a few years. So I always protect them under the Crystal. So if you ever see an Abingdon watch, the dead giveaway is going to be that it has an inner bi directional chapter ring. You’ll always see date. I’m always going to have a date window. Sometimes it’ll be day and date, but it will at least always be date. The other thing is for our metal straps. We use a custom metal strap that we developed a few years ago. It’s called our Chevron strap, and that is unique to our brand. So a lot of times, like you can see a Brightling from across the room because it has that slanted, shiny metal strap that’s really pretty. The same thing with an Abingdon. Ours isn’t a high Polish. It’s a combination of polished and brushed steel. But we always use this one metal strap, and they’re all interchangeable across all of the styles. So even a model that comes with a leather band, if you wanted to get our steel strap, it’s going to fit so cool. And it has that kind of almost arrow shaped Chevron. Chevron, I guess is the word. But it’s distinctive. Right. Has cool shape.
Michael Canfield: Very awesome. So one of the things I wanted to talk about a little bit was the question of the pilot watch and the functionality of the sort of bezel on your website. And I want to point the listeners to this question of you having some instructional videos. Right. Some ways of really learning how to use a pilot watch, which is awesome and very well done. So I think people really should go look at those. And I’m curious, what would you say just for listeners right now, where would a pilot use that thing? I know that you’ve got instruments, et cetera, but what kind of question or problem would it be?
Abingdon Mullin: I’ve got to figure out what in the air. If you took away your instruments, what would be a couple of examples? So I chuckled, because once you’ve done your training, your private, your instrument, your commercial ratings, you almost never use the flight computer again. And that’s a thing with pilots is they’re like, oh, look at this pilot’s watch. It’s got an E Six B on it or a flight computer on it. Yeah, I haven’t used that in years because your avionics just tell you everything. And there’s so many backup and redundancy right now to the avionics that it’s not commonly used by pilots that are seasoned, that have been flying for a long time. But if you are in training and we just had a crew member, she told us that on her check. Right. I want to say it was her instrument rating. She was already had her private. She’s working on her instrument. And she said it was amazing that I had this watch on my wrist during my check ride because I’m there with the examiner. They’re sitting right next to them in the copilot seat. They’re in the flight in the captain seat. And she said, I dropped my E Six B onto the floor of the plane. And because I’m under the hood, which is an instrument term where you’ve got a block, you wear this kind of visor that cuts off the entire windshield so all you can focus on is the instruments in front of you. And she was like, there’s no way if I had reached down to try and find the E Six B, her slide rule. One, she didn’t know where it was, and two, she could have gotten disoriented from just her balances of going down and coming back up. So she said, all I did because I had an E Six B right there on my wrist is I just took my watch off and started using the flight calculator during my exam. And the examiner was so impressed that she had a backup to that she passed the ride. She was very excited about it, and she had to tell us the story. So that’s one instance with the airline world, they are definitely not necessarily using the E Six B. Sometimes, though, when I’m flying the bus, the Airbus, I will calculate out on my flight computer, what if I increased our speed this much? What’s our fuel going to be, what’s our fuel born going to be? Will that buy us 15 minutes of time, 20 minutes of time, 30 minutes of time, because a flight computer can do time, speed and distance calculations. But a lot of times, international pilots, they won’t use them for anything in the flight deck. They’ll use them when they’re on the ground. I did this in Germany when I rented a car and was driving down the Audubon several places in Europe. It’s written in kilometers per hour on your speedometer in the car or even on the road. And I wanted to know, well, I live in miles per hour. So what is that in statute? So a flight computer will do statute miles to kilometers. It will also do it to nautical miles, too. It will convert currency, because really, at the end of the day, this is the ratio rule, right? So one dollars is maybe one point 38 Euro. So you just line up one, three eight to one on the inner and outer rings of the E Six B, and you’ve got all your dollars on one side, all the Euros on the other side. You can read the menu and know how much you’re spending on dinner. So there’s a lot of different tools and tricks and things that you can do multiplication and division if you really want. My favorite story that I tell people, I was in Hong Kong in a place called the Ladies Market. And I really wanted this pair of Chuck Taylors of Converse. And they were these baby blue color. I’d never seen a color like it, and I really liked them. And the lady that is trying to sell me these shoes, she would tell me a price in Hong Kong dollars. And I was wearing my Jackie watch in seaplane green. And I’m looking at the watch and I see what she means when she tells me in Hong Kong dollars what that is in us. And then I just gave her a different price. I looked back at her and I gave her another price in Hong Kong dollars. She comes back at me, we’re haggling over these shoes because that’s what you do in the Ladies Market. And we settled on a price. And as she’s packing up the shoes for me, she’s like, why did you keep looking at your watch? You got somewhere to be? And I said, no, it was converting the currency for me. So when you told me a price, I knew what you were saying in dollars. And she’s like, no way. So she goes and gets her calculator. She comes back, she’s like, let’s see how fast you can go. So I beat her every single time, because here she is having to punch it in. I already had it set. I didn’t even have to twist anything on the watch. The conversion was already set. So there’s a lot of things that you can use with a flight computer that are even outside of the flight deck.
Michael Canfield: That’s awesome, really cool. And it’s neat to have that, even if, whether you use it or not, knowing how to use it and also just having that instrument as part of it, that makes it kind of fun. So I had another question. I guess a main question is this. So your watches are described as for their adventurous watches for adventurous women. And even if one isn’t an adventurous women, obviously learning about having done watches is really great to have in the pocket for gift ideas for a special someone. Right? Like, if that’s not who you are. But I’m wondering kind of about the aspect of gender that’s inherent in the watches. How do you conceptualize that? Right. And how do you think about different people wearing those? Some don’t seem overly feminine and curious, how would you feel about would men be interested in some of them at all? And again, especially now with gender being more inclusive. Right. And people thinking about that. I’m just kind of wondering how you think about it and how you think about your customer base in the context of that.
Abingdon Mullin: We absolutely have a lot of men who wear Abingdon watches, my husband included. And he wears the Amelia Cloud White with a steel band. And that’s a 40 millimeter case size. So that’s a great case size for a man’s wrist. Our largest case size is 41.5 mm. But we have, I think, four styles that have 40 mil cases. So for those men that do, like, more of a classic size and something that’s not gargantuan, 45, 50 mm, these are very classic, beautiful styles. And with the flexibility of all the bands being interchangeable across any of them, that also makes it very universal to whoever’s wrist. I would say with our company, the ethos, the biggest thing that I want to do is I want to show women that they can be included in the watch world. So that’s why we more specifically market towards women over men. But not to say that men can’t wear these either. We’re just telling women, hey, it’s okay to also wear a watch. It’s okay to also be really into watches, because watches are really fascinating. I think that they’re very similar to airplanes. They’re mechanical, they work. There’s no magic between. I mean, everybody says, how does an airplane fly? Oh, it’s magic and a lot of money. But at the end of the day, it’s a mechanical piece of equipment. And so if I can encourage a woman to wear a watch and not just wear a watch, but when she puts it on, it’s kind of like a piece of armor. She’s a member of a crew of really badass women. I hope I can say that the BA word on the podcast. Okay, cool. But yeah, it’s an empowerment symbol. It’s saying, yeah, you can go out and you can do anything that you want to do. And this is going to be a daily reminder because you’re putting this on your wrist every day.
Michael Canfield: I think that’s fantastic. It’s funny you mentioned that one, because it’s sort of a loaded question in the sense that I was like, wow, that Amelia looks pretty nice. You know what I mean? Like, for anyone, right. It’s not too big as most of the pilot watches, or many of them are just huge. They’re really big. And I’m not a big person. I’m five, eight or whatever. And relatively small risks. Right. So I sort of gravitate towards those that are 40, 41. And most of the pilot watches really are quite a lot bigger. So I was kind of wondering about that. Right. And I think the other thing is it’s kind of neat parallel in the sense that traditionally, I think before Abingdon, if a woman wanted to wear a pilot’s watch, she would have had to wear one that was intended for men. Right. And that’s okay. But it’s nice now that there’s almost the reverse, that someone could look at it and say, hey, this is a little bit more sized. Appropriately. Watches are starting to trend smaller. Anyway, that’s a really good option. That Amelia on Steel is a great recommendation for anyone. And it’s really reasonable price, too. Right. I have to say that the price point. People have to relative to the other offerings in the watch world. Right. That’s a pretty nice price point. Gmt functionality or Zulu functionality. It’s a great so there’s a lot of good options there for people. Love it. Yeah.
Abingdon Mullin: The Amelia is a Swiss movement Sapphire Crystal and a GMT, and it’s less than $500. That’s pretty amazing. The prices all range between 400 and $900. And my intent with that because I always get the comment, why don’t you raise your prices? Why don’t you raise your prices? And I’m like, I want to get more people into watches. Let’s put away the Apple Watch and let’s go to something that is going to be impressive on a job interview. Impressive on a date, impressive just in your everyday. And the Apple Watch is a great extension of your phone, but it’s not impressive. And it’s an extension of your phone. Right. As well. That’s what it is. They call them you’re strapped to the world in a way that it’s nice to have other things, like a beautiful instrument.
Michael Canfield: All right. Well, I have two more quick questions. One, I did want to make a comment that we’re not going to talk a lot about your foundation, but you have a foundation as well that I think it’s really important to mention and that you’ve got an opportunity to really share this and open this. I don’t know word to other people. I don’t know if you want to just explain briefly what it is so people know.
Abingdon Mullin: Sure. Yeah. The Abingdon Foundation was founded on the ten year anniversary of a watch company. So back in 2017 is when we founded and established the 501 C Three. It is a registered nonprofit here in Nevada. And what we do, our mission is to encourage the female pursuit of nontraditional industries and steam fields. So steam being science, tech, engineering, arts and mathematics. And I like to say we walk the walk and talk the talk. What I mean by walking the walk is we will bring people into the United States or from the United States to conferences and walk them around that conference to help them meet the people that are going to help further their careers. So like I said, we were just at the Women and Aviation conference in Nashville last week. We would be bringing a scholarship winner to that event. We’ve brought women to the shot show, shooting, hunting, outdoor trade show. We’ve brought them to dive shows, Dima, Long Beach scuba show. We’ve brought to a variety of different automotive, aviation, any tech CES I’m naming off a lot of trade shows. If you know you’re in the trade show industry, then these are probably big shows that you’re familiar with. But we are really trying to help further people’s careers and build their Rolodexes so that they know where to go, how to do something, what scholarships to apply for, where the aspect of the industry that they want to pursue could be, and how did they get there? So that’s our walking the walk and that’s our scholarship program. Our talking this Hawk is we go to schools and we talk to high schoolers, we’ll talk to middle schoolers. We’ve produced brilliant books. If you search on Amazon Abingdon brilliant book, you’re going to see activity books built for kids that are either ten and under or ten and over that are about space and technology. And it’s just like you’re coloring book with your animals or your Alphabet, but instead you’ve got bit and computer and hard drive and air traffic control and radar and those types of things. Kids are sponges. We can teach them those things before we teach them ball Orange. Those things are important as well when they’re babies. But when they’re young, introduce them into some of these steam concepts. They will be able to retain that information. So we’ve got these wonderful activity books. There are only $10 a piece on Amazon, and those go towards our scholarship program. So across the board. And even when you buy a watch on our website, you have the ability to donate to the foundation on the checkout page. And it all goes towards our mission.
Michael Canfield: That’s fantastic. Yeah. And nice that you have an opportunity and a place to be able to make those contributions as well. So I love hearing about that. So two last quick things. First, one of the great things about watches, and I would imagine planes, too, and also any other objects where they can take on meaning from different experiences. I’m curious for you, do any of your watches so far or particular planes occupy a unique place in your mind or in your soul based on the experiences you’ve had, any things that are just those really special objects you’re like?
Abingdon Mullin: I just think this thing is just the best. Well, I always wear the Jackie and Seaplane Green. That one that I was haggling with, one of the original prototypes. So it’s a 15 year old watch, and I always double wrist, so I’m always wearing two watches, and you’ll never see me not. And the Jackie and Seaplane Green always goes on my left wrist and then on my right wrist. I’m typically testing out a new watch sometimes or maybe, just maybe, if I’m diving or I don’t know, they’re doing something, then I’m going to wear a particular type of watch on that on my right. But the Jackie and Seaplane Green was one of the first five watches because Amelia only had come in black and white at the beginning. And then Jackie came in pink, green and white at the beginning. So the green one, just the one that spoke to me. It was like, all right, I’m your little sister here. So she’s always been there. And I just loved that watch to true to form, it has held up. I’ve only ever changed a battery on it. One time I did drop it on tile in my bathroom. I broke my heart, and an hour marking came off. If watches come into our repair house and we see them look like confetti where everything is floating around inside, we pretty much know that you dropped it, because if I’ve worn a watch for 15 years and the only time anything like that had ever happened is because I dropped it from five foot down to tile floor, then these are really tough. They’re really strong stuff. And so there is that in terms of airplanes, it’s just kind of my dream airplane, which is an Albatross. So I mentioned the Caravan earlier on floats. That would be my second airplane to the Albatross. And that’s where I want to get my mechanics ratings, because if you know anything about an Albatross or if you look it up, Grumman Albatross it is an old vintage RV with wings. And honestly, Mike, I’d probably live in it if I could figure out how
Michael Canfield: I think I saw it phenomenal in the Pima Museum. Do they have one? I think they do.
Abingdon Mullin: Absolutely. One somewhere. Yeah. The closest people know it from, it’s not exactly an albatross. There’s a smaller version of this airplane, but it’s Jimmy Buffett’s airplane. So Jimmy Buffett or like Chippendale is the old cartoon. They were always flying around in that airplane that landed on the water. So it’s basically like a sea plane that is so big that you can put, I think like six beds in it. And they’ve used them for all sorts of utilitarian purpose. It’s an allterrain airplane. So sea skis, water ski land. And yeah, that sounds fantastic. Well, I hope you get that one. You’re going to need a pretty big hangar, personal hangar for that. I would think relatives, but things are moving up, so maybe it won’t be too long. That’s fantastic. We’ve got Lake Mead out here in Las Vegas. Oh, that’s right. Park it out there.
Michael Canfield: That’s right. I didn’t think about it. You could put it on the water. All right, last question. So again, I think your lifestyle can be fairly described as adventurous and you’ve already experienced a lot in your life, and I appreciate you sharing all that. Are there a couple of things that you’re hoping to have the opportunity to do? I mean, you’ve been a lot of places, but places you really want to travel or where you would like to go or things you’d like to do. And I also wonder which watch you would take place, although it does sound like the Jackie With Sea plane would be likely. But anyway, are there things that are kind of on your bucket list?
Abingdon Mullin: Places I’d love to go to the Poles. I haven’t been to either north or south. I have flown over the North Pole, but I’ve never been to them on the ground, so that would be a lot of fun. And then honestly, I’m one of those space junkies, so I would totally want to go into space for my anniversary with my husband. We signed up for the one way ticket to Mars a few years back. I don’t know if you remember when they were doing that. We didn’t get selected, but I think they were looking for people with certain skill sets. Watchmaking is not really one of them, but it’s fun. Just at the beginning, I said the world’s a playground, and I really do believe that. So it’s always anywhere you go is fine, even when you go someplace that you’d already been. But it’s a different experience the second, third or fourth time because something happens or you meet somebody or whatever it is. So as long as I’m just continuing to move, it might not always be forward, but even sideways motions are sometimes beneficial and get you on the right path.
Michael Canfield: Well, you’ve taught us a lot and shared a lot of your experience and life with us. I really appreciate it. It’s been fun to get to know you and I really encourage people to get to know Abingdon watches and what you’re about, both as a watch brand and also the culture and contributions that you’re making. So thank you so much for joining us today on the Dogwatch.
Abingdon Mullin: Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it.
