Breitling Endurance Pro
Nov 27, 2020
Designed to be both a lightweight watch for athletes and a casual, everyday sports chronograph, the Endurance Pro perfectly blends high precision and innovative technology with a vibrant and colourful design.
The ultimate athleisure watch, the Breitling Endurance Pro comes in a range of eye-catching colours backed by the precision and skill of master watchmakers regarded the world.
$5,180. Visit www.partridgejewellers.com for further information.
Breitling has its very own place among watch brands: the highly exclusive ‘stronghold’ of technical watches, mainly chronographs. A longstanding partner of aviation, a field where reliability and precision play a vital role, the brand has always devoted premier importance to the quality of its products, designed to withstand intensive use in the most trying conditions.
Movement
Breitling is a chronograph specialist that has played a key role in the technical development of this complication, including by inventing the two independent pushpieces and by presenting the first selfwinding chronograph (1969). The firm belongs to the highly exclusive circle of watch manufacturers possessing their very own mechanical chronograph movements: a range of high-performance in-house made calibers endowed with useful and user-friendly functions (including innovative dual-time and worldtime systems), and accompanied by an exceptional five-year warranty. To ensure complete mastery of the quality of its mechanical movements, Breitling built an ultramodern factory on the outskirts of La Chaux-de-Fonds and named Breitling Chronométrie. Moreover, the electronic models are all equipped with SuperQuartz™ movements that are ten times more accurate than the standard quartz equivalents.
Breitling has chosen to explore new paths in manufacturing its own chronograph movements. Inspired by an avant-garde concept used in other cutting-edge sectors and duly adapted to watch industry, the firm has developed an industrial production-chain system that revolutionizes traditional movement assembly. Each movement is individually monitored by an ultra-sophisticated software program that automatically directs it towards the appropriate work station, along a route alternating between fully automated stations and others requiring manual intervention. All the adjustment phases are also integrated within this process, which means that each movement emerging from the chain is ready to face the stringent tests conducted by the COSC. Breitling thereby guarantees the reliability of its "instruments for professionals", including in large-scale production.
To guarantee absolutely reliable read-off by the COSC (Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute) test instruments, each movement must be fitted with a white working dial and a black seconds hand. The movements are individually wound once a day using a machine that turns the crown according to a predetermined number of rotations. Precision is measured by a robot that reads the position of the seconds hand. Each individually numbered movement is tested during 15 consecutive days and nights. The controls are performed in five positions and at three different temperatures (23° C, 38° C and 8° C). To earn the much-coveted title of an officially certified chronometer, the movement must meet seven extremely rigorous eliminatory criteria, including a mean daily variation in rate of less than -4/+6 seconds - corresponding to a 99.99% degree of accuracy. Only 5% of the watches produced in Switzerland are chronometer-certified.
Breitling cases are designed to accompany professionals on their most extreme missions. They must therefore provide maximum protection in case of impacts, and each detail of their construction has been developed and tested to withstand intensive use. They are also distinguished by their technical complexity, their high-end aesthetic appeal and the quality of their finishing.
Breitling uses only top-class metals such as the 316L antimagnetic stainless steel alloy, or grade 2 titanium. Particular care is devoted to the parts most exposed to external influences, such as the crowns and pushpieces. Water resistance is guaranteed by highly sophisticated systems.
Breitling cases are made by a stamping (swaging) process that is performed cold for steel and gold and hot for titanium. The case-middle blanks are first cut out from a metal bar. A series of swaging operations at increasingly high pressure serves to give the case its final shape. Before each new stamping, the case-middle is heated to around 1100° C in order to let down and restabilize the metal. Each case middle of the Chronomat is subjected to a total pressure of 875 tons during the 15 stamping phases.
Then comes the machining - involving turning the round parts, milling-cutting the complex geometrical shapes, drilling holes for the crowns and pushpieces - smoothly associating the hand and machinery including five-axis high-speed "machining centers". After the added parts are welded to the cases, the latter are treated to a set of subtle and contrasting finishes - polishing, satin-brushing or beadblasting - in a lengthy process combining mechanized work and the polisher's dexterity. All the parts added to the cases (bezels, backs, crowns and pushpieces) are manufactured and finished with the same concern for technical and aesthetic perfection.
Case
Dial
Featuring aesthetic sophistication, a refined play on hollowed and raised surfaces, as well as meticulous finishing, the dials of Breitling chronographs and watches require mastery of cutting-edge production methods combining traditional skills with ultra-modern technologies. Each detail has been designed to enable optimal read-off of information at a glance, just like on an instrument panel.
The dials are blanked from a brass plate into which various holes and apertures are drilled. They are then polished and "colored" by means of lacquering or electroplating (based on the principle of electrolysis), which involves immersing them into several successive baths through which an electric current is run.
For the Navitimer dial, Breitling makes use of a refined "épargne" process applied to a pure silver or gold base and ensuring peerless radiance and readability. The counters are hollowed and "snailed" (decorated with spiraling lines) and then colored. The various markings are printed using ink-coated silicon pads in a process entailing several firings in the furnace. The Breitling symbol is stamped from an 18-carat gold strip to within 1/100th of a millimeter, and then sandblasted, blanked and polished to create subtle contrasts. The manual placing and riveting of the Breitling symbol and the applied hour-markers calls for extreme dexterity. The operations are completed by the application of a luminescent substance using a nozzle pen connected to a high-pressure pipe. Production of the Navitimer dial comprises 23 different operations.
In 1905, as automobiles were emerging as the preferred mode of transportation, Léon Breitling patented a simple timer/tachymeter that could measure any speed between 15 and 150 km/h. The Vitesse timer allowed drivers to calculate their speeds – but also enabled police to do the same, and soon afterwards the first speeding tickets were issued in Switzerland.