I had the fantastic opportunity to put my hands on the modern Breitling Navitimer 806 Re-Edition and a vintage Breitling Navitimer from the 50s. I was thus able to directly compare these two models and check if they really were esthetically identical.

The new Breitling Navitimer 806 Re-Edition has a 41 mm diameter and 12.82 mm thick steel case. I have seen monster Navitimer models with a 46mm diameter case in the past, fortunately this is not the case here. The Navitimer case should however not be too small because the key point of the Navitimer is to provide numerous informations on the bezel. 41mm is a great size for a Navitimer to my opinion. The lug-to-lug separation is around 49 mm, so the watch wears very well on a 16 cm circumference wrist.

The watch adopts the classic Navitimer tri-compax design. The main dial is matt black as well as the three sub-dials. The counter 30-minute sub-dial is located at 3 o'clock, the counter 12-hour sub-dial is located at 6 o'clock, whereas the running-second sub-dial is located at 9 o'clock.

The large painted Arabic numeral hour indices on the main dial are filled with faux-patina luminescent material on the new Navitimer. This gives a nice vintage aspect to the watch. On the vintage watch, this luminescent material is gone. The three sub-dials are taking the place of the 3, 6 and 9 indices.

The main-dial and sub-dial hands are painted in white color. The hour and minute hands adopt a syringe shape and are also filled with faux-patina luminescent material.

"NAVITIMER" is painted on the main dial at 6 'o clock just above the counter hour-sub-dial. The old-school Navitimer logo is painted on the main dial at 12 'o clock above the main dial hand axis. This logo is the one of the AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association). It is composed of a shield with two wings.

There is a difference in the dial layout between the modern and our vintage piece. "BREITLING" is painted on the main dial at 12 'o clock, between the 12 hour index and the Breitling logo on the Re-Edition dial. This feature is missing on the Vintage 806.

If the Breitling Navitimer is an iconic watch amount pilots, it is because the functionalities of its bezel were extremely immensely useful and practical to provide informations to the crew, before the cockpit was filled with electronic instruments. Using the Navitimer bezel it is thus possible to perform calculations as multiplication, division, ground speed, miles per minute, gasoline consumption, rate of descent/climb, distance of descent/climb and nautical/statute miles conversions.

Reminecent of the old time, the counter-30-minte sub-dial has specific longer minute markers at 3, 6 and 9 minutes. That corresponds to the charging increment for long-distance calls, long time ago...

The beaded bezel is composed of 94 beads on the Re-Edition, whereas we counted 97 beads on the vintage model. Apparently the bead number was fluctuating between 92 and 125 in the 50s. I also found that the bezel height is a bit higher on the vintage model. The bezel is bidirectional, as expected for a Navitimer model. The different tracks are printed in white color on the black dial, whereas the tracks on the white bezel are printed in black color.

The main dial is protected by a domed acrylic crystal. No sapphire crystal here to stay truthful to the 1959 vintage model.

The Navitimer were in the past powered by Valjoux 72 and Venus 178 calibers, which are now highly collectible models. These two manual calibers have a classic vintage column-wheel with lateral-clutch architecture and are beating at 18'000 v/h. The new Breitling Navitimer 806 Re-Edition is powered by an in-house caliber 09. This is also a manual-winding caliber but based on a modern column-wheel with vertical-clutch architecture, beating at a higher frequency of 28'800 v/h. The caliber is chronometer certified and has a nice 70 hour power reserve.

No transparent case back on the new and vintage Navitimer. It is thus not possible to look at the calibers to compare them. "STAINLESS STELL", "BREITLING", the Breitling B signature and the watch number (N°XXXX/1959) are instead engraved on the brushed case back of the new Nanitimer.

The Breitling Navitimer 806 Re-Edition comes on a black Nubuck strap with pin buckle. Difficult to make a comparison with the vintage piece here as leather strap never last for 60 years.

The number tracks on the Navitimer dial is quite generous. I noticed that the white font used on the Vintage B09 black dial is a bit thicker than the one used on the b09 Re-Edition dial. The track legibility is a bit better on the vintage model but the dial looks quite buzy. The dial of the new Navitimer appears cleaner in comparison.

I am a fan of the pilot chronographs, when they are well made. "Pilot watches" usually means "big watches" but they should not be too big (Nobody is piloting a P-51 or a FW-190 anymore). With a 41 mm diameter case, which is also the size of the vintage model, Breitling nailed it. The watch is stunning, the layout is harmonious, the legibility of the dial and bezel is great. The new Navitimer 806 is nearly identical to the vintage model, esthetically speaking. Wearing on the wrist this new Navitimer 806 is to experience the feeling of owning a new old-stock watch; a watch lost in a time capsule and which remained intact for 60 years. It is this incredible feeling to wear a new watch, which looks like an old watch, without to have to worry if all the parts are genuine or to have to baby the old caliber. A real pleasure! I am very pleased Breitling made the effort to convert its self-winding in-house chronograph caliber into a manual-winding caliber to stick to the original features of the vintage watch. The Breitling Navitimer 806 was one of the stars of 2019 and it trully deserves it. If you are interested by this model (and you really should), the 1959 pieces are unfortunately long time gone. Breitling however mentioned that an old vintage Breitling model will be brought back to life every year, so let's hope that the next model will be as appealing as this one.