Horological Meandering

A few pics of my Breitling Old Navitimer II

 

This week's wristscan with the aviation theme reminded me of one of my first watches that I picked up many years ago.  It's a Breitling Navitimer, officially named the Old Breitling Navitimer II.  The Navitimer collection was first introduced in 1952 and besides having the chronograph function it also had a innovative navigation computer that was useful in calculating flight plan activities.  This navigation computer was incorporated into the watch as a circular slide rule with calculation scales along the outer edge of the dial.  The bezel rotates in both directions and has it's own numeric scale for the calculations.  When I received my watch it came with a circular slide rule with thick instruction booklet that explain how to do many of the mathematical calculations. 




Production of the Old Navitimer II was between 1993 and 2002, with my watch being made in 1998.  It had three subdial layout with the chronograph totalizers at the 6, 9 and 12 o'clock positions along with a date at 3 o'clock.  The more current versions have the tri-compax totalizer layout with a date at between 4 and 5 o'clock.  For me I really like the older version with the date at 3 o'clock because I think it looks more symetrical. 
My watch was a special order that I made with my AD and took approximately 5 weeks for delivery.  I had specified a silvered dial with luminous Arabic numerals for the hour markers.  A standard gold and stainless steel Navitimer came with a silvered dial with silver colored stick hour markers.

The Breitling Old Navitimer II had a Breitling Caliber 13 automatic movement which uses the base ETA Valjoux 7750.  Power reserve was a standard 42 hours.  It was extremely reliable and kept time well.  I used the chronograph a lot during business travel and never had an issues with the movement.  After about 12 years of almost daily wear, I ended up sending it back to Breitling for a spa treatment with a full polish and movement overhaul.

While I was waiting for my watch to return, I embarked on a project with one of my other hobbies: radio controlled model helicopters.  It's something that I've been actively involved in for a number of years and I become proficient enough to start flying full fuselage r/c helicopters.  I thought that it would be cool to build a model Breitling heli since the brand has such a long connection to aviation.
 It took a while to build but I ended up using one of my Align T-Rex 450SE sized electric helicopter chassis.  I built a fiberglass canopy modeled after the real full scale  Breitling Hughes 500.  To make the flight characteristics more scale-like I dialed down all the trims to make it more stable.  The carbon fiber blades tracked perfectly and has a headspeed of about 1800 rpm. 





 It took about 4 months for the service to be performed by Breitling USA and when I received it back I was somewhat disappointed with it.  The polishing was perfect as the watch looked brand new.  However if you look closely can you spot the subtle difference? 





They changed the style of the hands    It was easy to spot right away and no need for a close comparison.  The replacement hands have a broader tip than the original.  Also, the tip of the hands have long needles sticking out of it.  When I brought this up with my AD and Breitling they said it was the same and that was the only hands they had available.  I showed them several photos of my watch prior to being sent and even though it was clear that the new hands were different, Breitling refused to do anything further.  This really turned me off to the brand and from that point forward I haven't purchased another Breitling watch again.  I have to admit that I do travel with my Breitling Aerospace because it has so many useful features like the digital chronograph and multiple alarm settings. 







Anyway, I still continue to fly my Breitling r/c helicopter and it's been a lot of fun.  Hope you all enjoy the pics.

Regards,
ED-209