In 1999, the Breitling Orbiter 3 became the first balloon to fly around the world nonstop. Named after the Swiss watchmaker for its long history with aviation, the Rozière-style vessel was made by British firm Cameron Balloons and sailed from a town in the Swiss Alps before circumnavigating the globe and landing in Egypt. Today, it still holds the record for the longest un-refueled flight duration of 19 days, 21 hours, and 47 minutes. Breitling is honoring the 25th anniversary of the historical feat with a special-edition version of its Aerospace timepiece.
Fortunately unlimited in edition size (as far as we’ve heard), the Aerospace B70 Orbiter is along the lines of previous entries in the underrated Aerospace collection of analog-digital hybrid watches and happens to fall in line with the watchmaker’s own 140th anniversary this year. Paying homage to the original flight balloon, the new watch features a bright orange dial with the Breitling Orbiter 3 emblem and comes with an actual piece of the original balloon on the back. Unlike other Aerospace models, the B70 Orbiter sports an exposition caseback, through which you can view the brand-new high-accuracy SuperQuartz movement, which is COSC-certified and boasts 10x more accuracy than a regular quartz movement. It’s also capable of functioning as a countdown timer, a chronograph stopwatch, a second time zone, two alarms, a lap timer, and a perpetual calendar, which are given on the digital screen. New for this edition, the watch adds a pair of pushers on either side of the crown for better control of these functions.
If you’re familiar with the Aerospace lineup, you’ll notice that most of the specs here are the same. We’ve got the 43mm titanium case with 100m of water resistance, a sapphire crystal, a bidirectional 60-minute bezel, and a matching titanium bracelet (with a rubber strap option). To make space for the new movement, however, the watch gets slightly thicker at 12.95mm.
Priced starting at $4,700, the Aerospace B70 Orbiter is now available from Breitling’s website and boutiques.
