WatchTime - August 2012

n January 2004, TAG Heuer was desperate.
It planned to debut its new concept
watch, the Monaco V4, at the upcoming
Basel fair, and the watch was not working.
Much was riding on the new concept.
CEO Jean-Christophe Babin was
counting on it to establish TAG Heuer as
a developer of cutting-edge, avant-garde
mechanical movements.
In the meantime, the V4’s designer,
Jean-François Ruchonnet, was making a
business trip in Switzerland aboard a private
jet, owned and operated by a small
Swiss company. His pilot was named
Guy Sémon. During the trip, Ruchonnet
received a call from Babin urging him to
get the V4 working. In passing, Ruchonnet
mentioned the problem watch to Sémon.
To the designer’s surprise, Sémon
offered to take a look at the watch to see
if he might help. “But you are a pilot,”
66 WatchTime August 2012
TAG Heuer’s jet pilot turned physicist
Guy Sémon is designing mechanical
chronographs that measure time to
the millisecond and beyond.
BY MIKE DISHER
Ruchonnet said. So began TAG Heuer’s
introduction to the mind of Guy Sémon.
French by birth, Sémon graduated
from the French Naval Academy with an
engineering degree, then served in the
French navy as an officer and jet pilot
specializing in test flights. He continued
his career as an engineer for the French
Ministry of Defense, working on advanced
jet fighter programs like the Dassault
Mirage 2000. Sémon then attended
university where he mixed Ph.D. studies
in physics with engineering work. Following
graduation, he became a university
physics instructor. This is not the usual
watchmaker’s career path.
After a few years, Sémon left teaching
to launch a company specializing in
flight simulation, an undertaking that
drew on his impressive and eclectic skill
set: test pilot, math and physics guru and
aviation engineer. Sémon’s company
grew to employ 245 engineers and it
worked closely with European manufacturers
and with Lockheed-Martin in the
United States.
In 2000, Sémon sold the company.
Too young to retire, he became an engineering
adviser to aeronautics companies
around the world, with clients in France,
Germany, the U.K., and Japan. So he
could continue to fly, he also launched a
small private aviation company in
Switzerland, which is how he came to
hear of the problem with the V4.
That problem was at once simple and
complex: the watch’s numerous drive
belts (13 in all) caused too much friction.
Sémon solved the dilemma with a Femtolaser
– a laser that generates ultra-fast