Metal from a Lockheed SR-71 aircraft, a former military reconnaissance plane nicknamed Blackbird, is featured in a new version of Urwerk’s Electro Mechanical Control watch, scheduled to debut Aug. 21.

The Swiss brand said the plane’s strategic purpose matched that of the timepiece: technical, user-powered precision.

The original version of the watch, a mix of mechanical timepiece and a smartwatch known as the EMC, was introduced in 2013. It was promoted as extremely precise, thanks to a crank on its side that allowed the wearer to control its timekeeping mechanism.

“The EMC is more like a control board for a movement,” said Martin Frei, Urwerk’s artistic director and one of its founders. “In this sense, it’s really like the cockpit for the owner of the watch, who gets involved in the process of maintaining the machine.”

The crank handle and screw-down bezel of each Urwerk SR-71 “Blackbird” watch has been made from a section of a plane that crashed in western Texas in June 1970. The metal is a titanium alloy, mixed with metals such as vanadium and iron. (The rest of the watch, which is powered by an in-house movement, is titanium and steel.)

To obtain the airplane parts, Urwerk partnered with Roman Sperl, an aerospace engineer, and Jason Sarkoyan, a watch designer and space travel enthusiast, who are the founders of Dreamland, a company that supplies aerospace parts. Mr. Frei got to know them through social media early in the Covid-19 pandemic, bonding over a shared passion for the SR-71 Blackbird. (Dr. Sperl has an Instagram account dedicated to the plane.)