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Exactly one hundred years in the past, within the year 1921, Louis Charles Breguet shared his bold vision to introduce airplanes that might attain an altitude of as much as 13,500 meters and whole the distance from Paris to New York inside six hours. Louis Breguet, inspireehealth incredible-first rate-grandson of Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747–1823), wanted to make air tour viable for as many people as possible. In 1930, his imaginative and prescient became reality as the first non-forestall flight from Paris to New York took off.
The descendant of watchmaking legend Breguet is in the long run answerable for the family’s affiliation with aviation. Louis Charles Breguet was an plane designer who advanced, among other things, the primary flightworthy helicopter. During both wars, his business enterprise produced army aircraft for the French Air Force, which was, by the way, geared up with watches from Breguet. The contemporary Breguet pilot watches – from the Type XX to XXI to XXII – date back to the chronographs produced for fighter pilots from 1935. Without similarly ado, permit’s fly back in time and visit the most vital milestones and models from Breguet’s pilot watch history.
Louis Breguet and the Maison Breguet
Louis Charles Breguet became born in 1880. After graduating from the École Supérieure D’électricité, he dedicated himself absolutely to aviation. He founded the Société Anonyme des Ateliers D’aviation Louis Breguet (later certainly named Breguet Aviation), and proved extraordinarily a hit selling his aircraft below this name. In 1916, he evolved the “Breguet XIV” plane, with some 8,000 models being added to 15 international locations between 1917 and 1926. At the peak of his career, he pioneered vertical flight together with René Dorand. The “Gyroplane Breguet-Dorand” become delivered in 1935, going on to be the maximum succesful helicopter of its time.
Although Louis Breguet was also passionate about watchmaking, he dedicated himself absolutely to aviation. Louis-Clément Breguet offered his own family’s watchmaking business enterprise to his workshop boss Edward Brown in 1870, which means it changed into no longer inside the palms of the Breguet family. Nevertheless, each agencies remained close to the name Breguet. During the World Wars, Breguet army aircraft had been ready with cockpit timepieces from the Breguet watch manufacture.
The History of the Type 20 and Type XX
That said, Breguet did not most effective produce watches not handiest for the cockpit, however additionally for pilots, and subsequently even civilian models due to their popularity. The manufacture produced the first wristwatches for fighter pilots in 1918. Initially, but, those had best three fingers. It was now not until 1935 that Breguet additionally geared up the watches with chronographs. However, today’s Breguet Type XX – XXI – XXII models sincerely date returned to pilot’s watches that were produced after each wars. Since Breguet hired best about 10 human beings in the Nineteen Fifties and 60s, the company Mathey-Tissot in Les Ponts-de-Martel turned into commissioned to supply Breguet’s Type 20 watches. From 1975, those had been then assembled in Paris in small ateliers.
Essentially, it is easy to divide the history of Breguet pilot watches into 3 generations. It is important to understand here that the army models have been called Type 20 and the civilian models were titled Type XX.
1954 – 1970: The first technology of Type 20
In the Nineteen Fifties, the French Air Force expressed a desire for a wristwatch for its fighter pilots, which must might meet numerous standards. This Type 20 model changed into to have, amongst other things:
have a black dial with Arabic numerals
a 38 mm case
a bidirectional rotating bezel
a chronograph with flyback feature.
Furthermore, the movement turned into best allowed to deviate +/- 8 seconds an afternoon. In addition, the electricity reserve needed to be at least 35 hours. Along with other manufacturers inclusive of Vixa and Dodane, Breguet took at the specification and evolved its very own interpretation of the Type 20 specification. @ technnologylimited
