Aviation has always had a great relationship with the luxury watch business. In fact, various brands created their now-classic pieces in honor of the aircraft industry and its many prominent members. To this day, the most premier watchmakers in the world still create specially-designed timepieces for aviation. Some have even modernized the concept as the practice has been done for a multitude of decades now. A stand-out piece of this caliber is Breitling’s Professional Cockpit B50 watch.While it may not be popular, aviation is still very much a strong community even outside the transportation industry. There are even a few races that aficionados like to take part in, such as Reno’s National Championship Air Races. It was during the 2014 edition of such that Breitling introduced their Cockpit B50 timepiece, part of their “Professional” line. The watch made headlines among the aviation community then and it’s still popular among critics and collectors to this day.
Breitling boasts their Professional Cockpit B50 timepiece as one of the first that was created almost entirely in-house. Save from some few parts supplied by ETA, most of this watch’s features were made by the Swiss luxury label themselves. Part of its most ingenious attributes is its COSC-certified chronometer that powers the highly-accurate digital properties. The watch also has an incredible power reserve that lasts 99 hours—one of the longest of its kind and of any timepiece offered by Breitling.
This timepiece costs a few thousand bucks, which tells any consumer that it’s of the luxury kind. With that said, this particular model doesn’t necessarily reflect luxury in its overall design aesthetic. Although its titanium casing has a lot of shimmer and shine to it, it’s not enough to merit the prestigious title of a luxury timepiece. With all the buzz about it being one of the first watches made almost entirely by the brand itself, they, unfortunately, lost a few design points along the way.
The Breitling Cockpit B50 series represents the ultimate pilot’s instrument, with ultra-readable displays, broad arrays of functions and extreme user friendliness. These precision instruments are equipped with the Breitling Caliber B50 – battery operated quartz chronometer movements that power the analog and digital displays.