Pre-Owned Breitling Breitling Patrouille Suisse 40940078/AS08866

How many watches can you spot from a mile away? 

How many watches have come to define their genre? Not too many. Not too many at all. 

Before the early 1950s, the concept of a civilian tool watch was a novel idea. Watch companies produced a few purpose-designed pieces for military use in the early 20th century, but most watches that were sold at retailers were designed with purely fashion in mind. In the 1950s and 1960s, the tool watch market exploded, fueled by the popularity of SCUBA diving and the growing interest in aviation.  Breitling was one of the earliest manufactures to respond to the trend when they released the Navitimer in 1954.

We’ve been referring to the Navitimer as a watch, but that’s not quite right — it’s really a wrist-worn navigation computer. The Navitimer’s most distinctive feature, the slide rule bezel, was used by pilots to calculate airspeed, ascent and descent rates, flight time, distance traveled, fuel consumption and even imperial to metric unit conversions. The Navitimer truly is a mechanical computer, and also happens to be one of the best damn looking watches out there. How cool is that?

Various iterations of their core pilot’s watch would grace display boxes for decades. This particular Breitling Navitimer is a limited edition variant done in partnership with Patrouille Suisse, an aerobatic team of the Swiss Air Force comprised of six Northrop F-5E Tiger II jets. 

The 41.5mm stainless steel case features a sapphire crystal, traditional ‘pump’ style chronograph pushers, a signed crown and a milled-edge bezel that bidirectionally rotates the internal slide-rule scale. The gloss black dial features three recessed silver subsidiary registers, a matching ‘syringe’ handset and a red arrow chronograph seconds hand with the Breitling “B” as the counterbalance. 

The Patrouille Suisse logo is adorned on the dial adjacent to the date window at 3 o’clock, as well as on the caseback. It is fitted on a signed olive green canvas strap with a signed steel buckle and packs the automatic-winding Valjoux 7750. 

Numbered 132 out of 1000, and accompanied by a signed rubber strap and books, this is your chance to snag a limited edition Navitimer with a legitimate connection to the Swiss Air Force.