![]() When Georges Kern arrived at Breitling in 2017, it didn’t take long for him to show his hand and demonstrate exactly where he was going to lead the company. Below, we take a look at Breitling’s class-leading pilot’s watches. The ‘air’ collection covers everything from faithful recreations of past glories harking back to the brand’s airborne heritage, through to some truly cutting-edge models, designed to survive just about anything. Today, under the directorship of Georges Kern (former head of IWC – another manufacturer with inexorable links to the skies) Breitling produces a streamlined range of watches that can be divided into three classifications land, sea, and air. Commander Scott Carpenter, one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, orbited the Earth three times wearing the Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute. In 1962, a Breitling timepiece achieved the ultimate goal for a pilot’s watch when it reached outer space. ![]() When WWII broke out the following decade, the Spitfire and the Lancaster were just two of the legendary aircraft to use the brand’s equipment, and Breitling would go on to become the official supplier to several commercial airlines after the war, including Boeing, Douglas, and Lockheed. After years spent making highly accurate pocket watches and groundbreaking innovations to the chronograph, the 1930s saw Breitling supply cockpit instruments for both civilian and military outfits, including the British RAF. Perhaps the most recognizable name in the field is Breitling, a manufacturer that can trace its flying roots back to the 1930s. Some are genuine wrist-worn instruments destined for the flight deck, while others are vintage-inspired throwbacks heavy on the nostalgia. Now though, the range of different styles and complications that exist across the category is massively diverse and practically every brand in existence produces aviation watches of one kind or another. Arguably more than any other brand, Breitling tends to lean into its aviation heritage, and there are now Breitling watches that span a wide variety of different pilot models. The earliest examples, for instance, were judged to be suitable for the job simply by the fact they were large and legible enough to be read in the cramped and often dark confines of an aircraft cockpit. However, unlike with divers, there are no strict ISO-like rules for what a timepiece must have in order be called a pilot’s watch. In fact, you could make the case for the first “tool watch” ever made being a pilot’s model, when Louis Cartier produced the Santos for his great friend, pioneering aviator, Alberto Santos-Dumont in 1904. In terms of tool watch popularity, the pilot’s watch genre is arguably second only to the dive watch.
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