Brushing up on our Navitimer history

In 1952 Breitling birthed its legendary Navitimer into the world, becoming a company famously associated with aviation. Shortly after, the Navitimer was being produced for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) which made the Navitimer one of the most iconic watch models created by Breitling.

It seemed like the Breitling Navitimer became the company’s cash cow, but the good times weren’t going to last. In the 1970’s, the quartz crisis was being felt in full force by the Swiss watch industry and Breitling was hit hard. Staff were laid off, and the decline in mechanical watch sales meant parts of the company were liquidated, closing its doors in 1979.

How did Sinn come into the equation?

The rights to the Navitimer were sold onto Sicura and Sinn, while the remaining Breitling stock (mostly cases and dials) were bought by Sinn, Ollech and Wajs and another company. Sinn bought the rights to the Breitling 806 and 809 Navitimer models as well as 500 cases and dials, keen to produce a pilot’s watch with a logarithmic scale and slide rule function that made the Breitling Navitimer so recognizable.

Sicura on the other hand continued to produce watches under the Breitling name, owning the rights to the names Breitling and Navitimer. Sinn focused on developing the Navitimer model with innovative technology, which accelerated when Lothar Schmidt took over Sinn in 1993.

Since the founding of Sinn in 1961, the company built a reputation in horology for creating some of the best tool watches in the industry based on cutting-edge technologies, from Ar-Dehumidifying and antimagnetic construction to Tegiment steel hardening and temperature stabilized movements. Sinn were also favoured for their tool watches by the German police and fire service, astronauts, and pilots with their range of TESTAF-certified pilot watches.