Breitling - Watches That Save Lives
The Breitling’s fate was determined from the very first day of its existence. The founder of this brand Leon Breitling opened a watch workshop in 1884 in Switzerland. The craftsman was going to focus on development and production of watches with additional functions, especially with chronographs. The new company produced watches under various names and only in the end of 1920’s the company’s products acquired their name that today is known to almost everyone on Earth.
In 1940 Breitling founded Breitling Watch Corporation of America. Breitling Watch Corporation is a joint venture with American watch maker Wakmann Watch company that had been responsible for sales of Breitling watches in USA up to 1970s.
1970s are a very difficult period for Swiss watch industry. In this period no one was interested in mechanical watches. Even James Bond replaced his Rolex with quartz Seiko. Cheap quartz watch technologies destroyed numerous small watch brands as well as famous manufacturers. On August, 27 1979 Breitling company was announced to stop its activity. However, in the same year the brand began its new life after it was bought and headed by Ernest Schneider.
Breitling has been always associated with aeronautics. Willy Breitling, the grandson of the company’s founder supplied British Air Ministry with chronographs for aircrafts in 1930.
With Ernest Schneider the relationships between Breitling and aviation became even closer. Ernest Schneider is a watch maker and a pilot. During a few years he managed to regain the brand’s popularity. He very successfully combined the brand’s 100 year experience in production of chronographs with modern knowledge and technologies.
One of the brightest Breitling watch models is, of course, Emergency. This model is the first watch with a miniature radio transmitter that squawks evergency to the distance up to 400 m.
Everyone knows that aviation involves much risk. Being aware about this matter engineers from Breitling released an absolutely new Emergency watch model in 1995. This was the first watch to have a miniature radio transmitter that can squawk emergency to the distance up to 400 km. The model, as you guess is designed for pilots. On January, 28 2003 this watch saved lives of two pilots who got in accident during their flight from Chile to the Antharctic. Both pilots were wearing Breitling watches, though the expidition had nothing to do with the brand. The pilots were saved due to the signals that allowed to locate the two men.
In whole there were 17 cases of resque. These watches save lives!
Many other Breitling models are very interesting. For instance, Navitimer watches differ from other timepieces due to rounded sliding rule.
Chronomat watch models draw attention first of all by very expensive case that consists of 80 parts. Chronospace and Aerospace are quartz watches with hands and two digital indicators.
Breitling always cares about improvment of its products quality. Since 1995 there has been no Breitling watch with a gilded case. Today everything that looks like gold is really made out of gold.
