How Breitling Made Aviation Easier

These Breitling inventions were essential for aviation pioneers in the early 20th century

Aviation has come a long way since the Wright Brothers’s first flight in 1903. One watchmaker that improved the odds of success for early aviators was Breitling, thanks to these two inventions.

How Breitling Made Aviation Easier - Cortina Watch — The Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43 Tribute to Concorde in steel with a blue dial and alligator leather strap.

The early 20th century was a transformative era for transportation. Powered air travel was becoming a reality and by 1906, the world had recognised the first official airplane flight, travelling a distance of 220 metres at a height of 6 metres. Even as air travel continued to accelerate its development over the next two decades, aviators faced numerous challenges from refuelling to gauging flight times and charting paths. Precise timekeeping was a crucial factor in their success or failure.

Breitling was one of the first watchmakers to develop an industrialised production and Leon Breitling’s precise chronographs such as the Vitesse pocket watch (pictured above) were adopted by Swiss police to issue speeding violations. Within 25 years after he had established Breitling, they had developed rattrapante chronographs, tachymeters, telemeters, and sports timing instruments. But Breitling’s first major contribution to aviation was in 1915 when it created the first chronograph watch with an independent pusher at 2 o’clock, for starting, stopping, and resetting of the chronograph. Eight years later, the watchmaker added a second chronograph pusher at 4 o’clock, splitting the start/stop and reset functions of the complication.

In the past, chronographs were used by aviators to calculate a number of different essential data, from gauging fuel usage and remaining distance to travel, to distance covered and flight direction and path. The pre-radar era made precise timing devices an essential element of aeronautical navigation – without it, pilots could end up miles away from their planned flight paths. Prior to Breitling’s invention, chronograph pushers were positioned over the crown; with independent pushers at the 2 and 4 o’clock positions, they were easily controlled in one hand by a pilot or co-pilot without accidentally adjusting the time. It also made controlling the chronograph easier, especially the start and stop functions. 103 years later, Breitling’s chronograph pushers are still the de facto standard across the industry.

The Rule of Thumb

In 1940, Breitling developed a bezel concept designed to add utility to its chronograph watches – a circular slide-rule. The slide rule is a mechanical calculator that can accomplish a range of operations from multiplication to logarithms. Breitling’s bezel slide rule was a multi-functional tool that could calculate quantities per hour, convert between scales, and perform multiplication and division using two logarithmic scales. It made the watch a perfect tool for navigators and aviators, an essential utility that they could rely on should their flight instruments fail. The Breitling Chronomat was the first model launched in 1942 with the circular slide rule, a timely invention in the midst of a world war. Sized at 36mm and powered by the Venus 175/178 chronograph, it featured a central chronograph seconds counter with a base-100 scale for easy decimal/logarithmic conversions with the circular slide rule.

Breitling’s circular slide rule consists of two rings, one on the outer flange which is rotatable, and another which is fixed and surrounds the hour ring and minute track. Indications up to 100 are printed in a logarithmic scale – ’11’ for example can be read as 1.1, 11, 110, or 1,100, based on the calculation involved which needs to be determined by the user. The convenience of having a slide rule at hand was an advantage to engineers, military officers, and pilots in the field. Furthermore, a watch can be used as a navigation compass to gauge geographic location or path, which made the Chronomat an all-purpose field tool watch.

A decade later, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) commissioned Breitling to develop a chronograph watch for its club members. Breitling modified the original circular slide rule bezel to calculate values that pilots would find useful, from average speed to fuel consumption, conversion of miles to kilometres, or even the rate of climb. The watch featured a high contrast dial with oversized Arabic numerals coated with luminous material for easy reading of the dial at any time. A BASE-1000/10-hour scale was added to easily determine these values, between the main dial and circular slide rule. The watch was named the Navitimer – a portmanteau of ‘navigation’ and ‘timer’ to emphasise its design as a tool watch purposed for pilots.

A Breitling Icon for the 21st Century

When CVC Capital acquired Breitling from the Schneider family in 2017, the luxury watch industry was ushering in a new generation of watch collectors. They favoured minimalist designs and elegant lifestyle-led timepieces over complex, multi-functional watch references. CEO of Breitling, Georges Kern, introduced new versions of the Navitimer which echoed these preferences. A time-only version of the Navitimer was added to the collection in a 41mm case size. (A smaller 36mm Navitimer Automatic appeared soon after with unisex and ladies’-oriented models. The latter featured mother-of-pearl dials and gemset hour indexes.) Without the chronograph, the Navitimer Automatic 41 is much slimmer and its dial less cluttered. Breitling added another travel-centric complication – the second time zone – to the Navitimer, with a 24-hour scale and arrow hand on the inner dial that indicates the home city hour.

The biggest observable difference in the Navitimer Automatic is the monotonal dial, in shades of brighter hues of blue, green, or red, with a sunray finish. It merges the circular slide rule bezel with the main dial and creates the appearance of a much larger display. In the Navitimer Automatic GMT 41, the bezel, hour ring, and second time zone inner dial have a layered appearance that is visually appealing. Breitling’s modern design language has also been expanded into the Navitimer B01 Chronograph 41, which uses its in-house B01 chronograph movement. On its larger models, the two-toned circular slide rule design is generally preserved and select high-end complications have been introduced.

The Navitimer B19 Chronograph 43 Perpetual Calendar combines the astronomical calendar complication with the chronograph. The dial’s counters combine chronograph and calendar information for clear reading (the counters have silver and black hands for chronograph and calendar indications respectively). The date and chronograph minutes counter is at 3 o’clock, with month and leap year at 6, and day of the week and running seconds at 9. A moonphase window appears at 12 o’clock. The fixed inner scale of the circular slide rule matches the ice blue dial, creating the appearance of a larger dial. Breitling is one of a few luxury watchmakers offering a perpetual calendar and chronograph in a self-winding, chronometer-certified movement, that is housed within a steel case.

Space travel is also a part of Breitling’s past and present; in 1962, a Breitling watch made history as the first Swiss wristwatch to venture into outer space, on the wrist of astronaut Scott Carpenter. This was a customised Navitimer with a 24-hour dial purposed for Project Mercury and became known as the Cosmonaute. Last year, Breitling released a limited-edition Navitimer B02 Chronograph 41 Cosmonaute Scott Carpenter Centenary watch to celebrate his 100th anniversary (Carpenter passed away in 2013). And this year sees a limited-edition Cosmonaute model dedicated to Artemis II, the first crewed lunar mission of the new Artemis programme. Artemis II was the first crewed flight that has gone beyond low-Earth orbit in 54 years, debuting the Space Launch System. The watch features a galaxy-blue meteorite dial with the rotating slide rule in black, and a exhibition case back that’s stamped with the logo of the Artemis II mission.

While the Chronomat was the first watch model to feature Breitling’s circular slide rule, today’s Chronomats are styled very differently. The Navitimer enjoys exclusive use of Breitling’s computational invention from nearly 90 years ago. But collections like the Classic AVI and Superocean feature hints of the circular slide rule bezel’s influence in their design, in the use of scaled markings and contrasting displays to create visual appeal. To discover how the Navitimer’s slide rule works, head to one of our boutiques to test it out for yourself – it might be a boon should you need to urgently do mathematical sums in your head someday.

Discover Breitling with Cortina Watch online, visit us at our boutiques, or contact a sales representative today to learn more.

How Breitling Made Aviation Easier

The Rule of Thumb

A Breitling Icon for the 21st Century