When it comes to pilot’s watches, companies generally take one of two distinct approaches: nostalgic pieces that conjure the style worn by an aviator in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, or a watch that might actually be useful to a pilot in the here and now. With the watch enthusiast crowd, many of whom are reading this article right now, it’s safe to assume that the former type of pilot’s watch holds more appeal, with a mechanical movement, broad hands on a legible dial, and maybe an oversized crown and a leather strap. This genre is enjoying a boom in popularity, with pilot’s watches competing with dive watches for wrist real estate. And we are spoiled for choice – consider IWC’s rebooted Pilot’s Watch collection this year, as well as collections from Bell & Ross, Bremont, Alpina and so on. Even Rolex showed off its refreshed (and polarizing) Air King at Baselworld this year.
But Breitling smart replica watches for UK sale perhaps more tied to aviation than any other watch brand, and has embraced both the nostalgic pilot’s watch and the modern style equally. (And, lest we forget, they were also the first company to be granted a patent for the two-pusher chronograph, all the way back in 1933.) The Breitling Navitimer chronograph replica watches of the 1950s was undoubtedly the watch Tom Wolfe was referring to his seminal book about test pilots and astronauts,The Right Stuff – watches that, “had about two thousand calibrations on them and dials for recording everything short of the sound of enemy guns . . .
In the 1990s, Breitling blue strap fake watches UK came out of bankruptcy with a new line of pilot’s watches that looked forward instead of back, with some of the first analog-digital watches aimed at pilots – with features like second time zones, multiple loud alarms, night vision-compatible displays, and even an emergency radio transmitter built in. The strategy worked, as these “modern” Breitlings became de rigueur pilots’ wrist-wear. As Jim DiMatteo, former commander of the US Navy’s Top Gun fighter training school (and Breitling USA’s aviation consultant, with over 5,000 hours in aircraft like the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-14 Tomcat) told me, “Fighter pilots always remember three things: their first solo flight, their first carrier landing, and their first Breitling.” Below is an example of perhaps the best known of the modern breed of high tech Breitlings: the Emergency, as seen in Hodinkee’s Hands On from earlier this year.
