Breitling Cleared For Take-Off With a Limited Edition Red Arrows Chronomat
The Chronomat was originally based on a watch designed for a fast jet display team.
Breitling is not holding back in its partnership with the Red Arrows, offering up its current hero model, the Chronomat, for a new limited edition.
Just 160 pieces of the Chronomat Red Arrows Limited Edition, which features the Diamond Nine emblem of the squadron on its dial, will be produced, reflecting the number of pilots to have flown with the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team since its inaugural season in 1965.
Breitling, which began suppling cockpit chronographs to the Royal Air Force to aid calculate distances and fuel usage in the 1930s, has been producing limited editions with the service for the past 30 years, including a collection to mark the RAF’s 100th Anniversary in 2018 and the Avenger Red Arrows Limited Edition last year. Today’s line-up of Red Arrows pilots all wear Breitling chronographs whilst flying.
The Chronomat was first released in 1984, based on a watch designed for the Italian Air Force aerobatic display team.
The 42mm stainless steel Chronomat Red Arrows Limited Edition features an RAF blue dial with black sub-dials and diamond nine emblem at the 12 o’clock position, unusually taking the normal place of the Breitling logo which instead sits below the axis of the hands, with a unidirectional bezel and the Chronomat’s idiosyncratic and interchangeable ‘rider’ tabs.
The Chronomat features Breitling’s tubular bracelet-of-the-moment, the Rouleaux, while the watch’s sapphire crystal caseback not only reveals the in-house Calibre 01 chronograph movement but features the Royal Air Force insignia.
The watch is available now via Breitling and its retailers, priced £6,900 ($9,645 USD).
Elsewhere in watches, Montblanc reveals its Minerva-inspired Origins series with a limited edition bronze monopusher chronograph.
