breitling navitimer, a chronograph that adds...

At the dawn of the 1950s, travel took on a new dimension, many qualified pilots were available following the war and progress made it possible to make planes that went further, faster and higher. With the use of the jet plane, the rise of airlines and the proliferation of travel. In the cockpit, three people: two pilots and a mechanic. All three need a chronograph capable of measuring time and a slide rule to convert and verify a multitude of variables such as: distance, speed, fuel consumption, drift due to "jet -streams” and flight time.

A challenge that Breitling immediately took up to create in 1952 what would become inseparable from the uniform of the new kings of the skies of the 1950s and 1960s: the Navitimer chronograph.

Caliber Venus 178 will be one of the components that will allow Breitling to solve the equation: Exact flight time + accurate and controlled flight parameters = Safety.

An extremely precise chronograph movement, which will animate three-hour, minute and second hands in the central position, together with a set of 3 other smaller ones to add up on 3 counters:

Minutes over half an hour: the average time of an airport approach procedure, with markers indexed every 3 minutes for the first three to control the branches of departure or report of turning points.

Minutes over an hour: the time devoted to departure or arrival procedures in an area control zone, with separate indexes every minute, raised every five minutes which correspond to the frequency of messages from exchange with the air traffic controllers in these areas



And finally, a 12-hour totalizer whose indications, which can identify the time spent per half-hour, easily allow the pilots or the navigator to control the elements and parameters such as the time spent in flight since take-off, the available fuel reserve, the time remaining until the next waypoint.

Minutes over an hour: the time devoted to departure or arrival procedures in an area control zone, with separate indexes every minute, raised every five minutes, which correspond to the frequency of messages from exchange with the air traffic controllers in these areas

And finally, a 12-hour totalizer whose indications, which can identify the time spent per half-hour, easily allow the pilots or the navigator to control the elements and parameters such as the time spent in flight since take-off, the available fuel reserve, the time remaining until the next waypoint.

The assembly being surrounded by a circular slide rule on a fluted rotating bezel for "hands on controls" use which will allow the "miles per hour or MPH" speed parameters to be converted from the indications read on the cockpit dials to compare them with the parameters that appear on the flight plan calculated on the ground and measure any shifts.

 A dial on a black background to allow optimal contrast which brings out the tritium which covers the hour digits and allows the digits of the outer disc of the white slide rule (calibrated for speeds per minute) to stand out opposite the central inner disc which is expressed in kilometers, finally the inner circle which corresponds to a scale of Miles per hour will allow the assembly to benefit from an instantaneous double reading of the speed measured by the chronograph in both aircraft speed measurement units. A veritable calculator ahead of time that is worn on the wrist, and which will relegate the other pilot's watches of the time to the rank of abacus...success is there... The Navitimer passed its admission exam with flying colors and immediately finds its place in all the cockpits of the world.



This rapid observation of the flight parameters by a simple glance at the alignment of the displayed values is the key to flight safety and its compliance with the flight plan. and this is what allows him to proudly display from his birth the legendary wings of glory of the AOPA: the famous and powerful American association of pilots and aircraft owners, the beginning of the legend.

With the model referenced 806, Breitling would create such a success that the available stocks of the Venus 178 movement would prove to be insufficient, and it would be necessary to endure a wait of several months in order to obtain the precious slot which will make it possible to receive this new sesame with golden wings. In 1954 to face this shortage, it will be decided to use a Valjoux 72 movement, as in the not less famous Cosmograph Rolex Daytona to satisfy the request always as important, this series very appreciated by the aficionados will prove to be one of the best-selling watchmakers of the mid-1950s and remains, due to its limited production, one of the major acquisition objectives of any collector.

Faithful to its origins and strong in the notoriety of the Navitimer, in the following years Breitling continued to establish itself as the official supplier of world aviation and it was not uncommon since that time to find in the cockpits of Boeing 707 or others, a watch, on-board instrument, signed by the brand. Notoriety such as it will be carried by many military pilots, such as the famous aviator and test pilot of the Marine Corps, Scott Carpenter, also known to have been selected by NASA in the orbital space flight program Mercury.

And on May 24, 1962, with his breitling navitimer 806 on his wrist above his flight suit, the astronaut took off to complete an orbital flight of 4 hours and fifty-two minutes at the controls of the Aurora 7 capsule of the Mercury mission. 7.

A "cosmonaute" version will now follow, marketed in parallel with its aviation version, a marketing variant still in force, and available today and which differs from the latter by an hour dial calibrated in 24 hours to have the time of reference in exact day/night phase during loss of these references due to orbital flight.

The end of the 1960s, which saw the Omega Speedmaster Chronograph accompany Neil Armstrong to the Moon with the NASA Apollo program, signaled the beginning of the quest for performance by the entire watchmaking ecosystem, a quest that would reward the world market in the 1960s- ten numerous automatic or complicated models. Breitling decided to change the mythical Venus 178 movement that powered its Navitimer and in anticipation to upgrade its model by equipping it with the Valjoux 7740 movement which offers the benefit of the date indication. The reaction of the aviation world is not long in coming, it is still a success and this watch which is approaching its twentieth anniversary is still fiercely worn by those who spend most of their time in the sky. A single highlight, in halftone, the famous AOPA logo will no longer adorn the dials of its models for a long time (it should be noted that at this time the Glycine Airman imposed itself as the rising star of the Air community, with its notoriety among American fighter pilots)

And in 1969, when man set foot on the moon for the first time, at the beginning of the period which saw the birth of Space Art, and to counter certainly the growing success of esteem which accompanies Omega's Speedmaster or Bullova's Astronaut model since they have accompanied NASA cosmonauts in the Apollo program in space,

Breitling sets foot in the still very closed circle of manufacturers of automatic chronographs with the use in its new model of the caliber 11 movement developed by the trio of companies: Buren, Dépraz and Breitling, the same movement that will be used in the famous Steve McQueen's watch at Le Mans: La Heuer Monaco. An innovation partly due to Willy Breitling's decision to invest in computer-assisted micro-component manufacturing technology that will revolutionize the watchmaking sphere. The result is a movement which remains of a very atypical design due to the arrangement of the oscillating weight under the dial, opposite the bottom of the case (which makes it invisible when the case is open) this arrangement beyond the fact making it look like a conventional chronograph movement allows the watch to better protect itself from the constraints exerted by the kinetic effects due to accelerations by centering this mass in the middle of the case… another equation well known to pilots….

Like the Heuer Monaco models, this “Chronomatic” automatic movement positions the winder to the left of the watch because its use, if the watch is worn regularly, remains anecdotal. The New Breitling Navitimer will be equipped with a date and will feature only two counters, a counter totaling the minutes from zero to thirty positioned at three o'clock and another calibrated in hours on a scale of twelve. The whole thing remains surrounded by a removable crown which animates a slide rule comparable to that of the origin, although more readable by its larger size. All this, set inside a new, very “seventies” case that corresponds to the aesthetic developments of the time.