Commercial airline travel just isn’t what it used to be, to put it gently.
October 24, 2003, marks the end of the last golden age of public aeronautical travel. On that day, the Concorde was retired, and supersonic transatlantic commercial travel died with it.
Best selling Breitling copy watches’ newest addition to the Navitimer collection reminisces about the glamorous and expedient age of the Concorde. It is a Navitimer B01 Chronograph with a navy blue and silver panda dial, matching the colors of the defunct jet plane.
The Concorde was a joint venture between British Airways and Air France, featuring 20 planes, each capable of whisking 100 passengers across the Atlantic Ocean in 3.5 hours. Naturally, it was also the most expensive way to cross “The Pond,” and became a symbol of luxury.
Dubbed the Tribute to Concorde, China Breitling fake watches ‘ iconic pilot’s watch serves as the perfect template for capturing the spirit of the airliner that proved too opulent and ambitious for its industry.
The design is tactfully simple, presenting a blue panda motif with silver subdials and a matching inner slide-rule bezel ring. It comes on a matching blue cushioned alligator strap with a steel deployant clasp.
A Franco-British venture
There is a coveted niche for double-signed dials, but instances like this, when one brand is doing all the work, it is best to leave the other party off the dial. Thankfully, best Breitling replica watches only mention the Concorde by name on the caseback ring.
Since the Concorde was actually a type of plane operated by both British Airways and Air France, it didn’t have any commercial logos. The only real iconography was the distinctive outline of the plane itself, affectionately known as L’Oiseau Blanc, or “The White Bird.”
Since both airlines that flew the Concorde, with the exception of a couple of instances where it was leased out to other companies, used red and navy blue as their primary colors, the bright white exterior always featured that combination.
The bright silver of the sunken, snailed subdials and inner slide rule track, along with the rhodium-plated hands and applied hour markers, represent the brilliant white exterior of the Concorde. The blue dial and outer slide rule bezel track with red detailing, along with a red chronograph seconds hand, match the plane’s various decals.
The navy blue alligator leather strap matches the navy blue leather seats in the Concorde planes operated by British Airways.
Other than the color scheme and etching on the caseback, this is a standard-issue 1:1 quality clone Navitimer B01 Chronograph watches. It has a 43mm stainless steel case, a slide-rule bezel and the chronograph features a 30-minute totalizer at 3:00 along with a 12-hour totalizer at 6:00.
The Tribute to Concorde is powered by a COSC-certified Breitling Caliber B01 automatic chronograph movement, featuring a vertical clutch and a column wheel. It ticks at 4Hz and offers a 70-hour power reserve.
The modestly decorated movement is visible through a sapphire crystal exhibition caseback. Due to the traditional pushers, the replica Breitling watches UK are only water resistant to 30m.
Availability and pricing
Tribute is a fitting title for the top fake Breitling Navitimer watches because it is merely inspired by the colors of the glorious, but ultimately doomed airliner.
The Concorde was expensive to travel on and even more costly to operate. It only experienced a single crash, an Air France flight in July 2000, which took the lives of everyone onboard. But this was enough to ground the entire fleet for over a year.
The post-9/11 lull in air travel that followed was the final nail in the coffin for the supersonic passenger plane.
Breitling’s Navitimer B01 Chronograph Ode to Concorde keeps the memory alive for $10,600. It is a limited edition of 593 pieces, a nod to the Olympus 593 turbojet engines that powered the plane.