The watchmakers at Bell & Ross have unveiled a new set to their Aviation Collection, with three interesting technical timepieces. Bell & Ross first released their vintage aviation-inspired BR01 watch in 2005, followed up by high-tech versions in 2010 and 2011 with the Compass and Radar models. Now they’ve added a set of three new BR01 watches to the collection at this year’s Baselworld event. Dedicated to vital aeronautical instruments needed for flight, the new additions are the BR01 Horizon, BR01 Altimeter and the BR01 Turn Coordinator. Check out this video comparing these watches with the flight instrument dials that inspired them:
All three use the original BR01 case with a 46mm steel case with a black PVD coating and screw in crown. The hands and hour markers are coated with a white photo-luminescent coating, to keep the minimalist look while still always appearing legible. The matte finish is achieved with a black carbon coating, making it anti-reflective, essential to avoid light blinding a pilot during flight. All are water resistant to a deep 100 meters, use anti-reflective sapphire crystal and come with rubber and heavy-duty canvas straps.
The BR01 Horizon watch is inspired by the artificial horizon indicator found on the dashboard of a airplane. This instrument lets a pilot know the plane’s relative position to the horizon and ground below. By using separate and shaded discs, this watch imitates a horizon indicator, with the hour hands appearing like the the wing markers against the middle horizon line.
The BR01 Altimeter watch follows the design of the instrument used to tell the pilot’s current altitude and atmospheric pressure. The hour, minutes and seconds hands easily fit into the display of an classic altimeter dial. A clever addition by Bell & Ross was including a big date display at the 3 o’clock position. This is where the atmospheric pressure would normally be displayed on a real altimeter.
The BR01 Turn Coordinator Watch features the most in innovation among this new set. to successfully imitate a plane’s turn coordinator to tell the time, three discs were layered on top of each other to tell the time at the 12 o’clock position. Since the weight of the three discs were much heavier compared to three watch hands, the power reserve and risk of friction and heat were a concern. So the expert watchmakers created the discs ultra-light and ultra-accurate, which automatically adjust to the nearest micron to not risk rubbing, which heat could deform their perfect rotation. The hour disc rotates by the hour, but the minute disc actually rotates at a constant rate of 60 seconds.
ANd ake sure to click on the watch names above to see them at the Luxury Bazaar online shop.
For our full Bell & Ross watch collection, click here and for more Baselworld 2012 coverage, click here.
