During the weekend I communicated with Robert-Jan Broer, publisher of the Fratellowatches.com blog; he asked
me what I thought of the Navitimer Aviastar, a watch he liked very much, but found very little about.
And it really is quite surprising, the Navitimer Aviastar - for me - is one of the nicer "New Breitling", based on the
case and Cal. 13/Valjoux7750 movement of the Old Navitimer II, it was launched in 1996 and produced until 1998.
The Aviastar (quite surprisingly named Navitimer, as it has no sliderule bezel) actually were the modern
incarnation of the highly desired AVI and Co-Pilot and carry the very proud heritage of the "Breitling 8" division,
established in the late 1930s by Willy Breitling to build watches for Air Forces - with special testing procedures,
turning out watches of highest reliability and accuracy, the ref. 734 and 765 were the first built by that division,
in the early 1950s the AVI versions w/ turning bezels were added - and built until the early 1970s.
Same AVI and Aviastar history, by Alan Trott:
http://forums.watchuseek.com/f39/breitl ... y-112.html
As even on this site I found not even one decent pic or wristshot of a Aviastar, I took some pics of mine;
would any other members that have one maybe add their pics, maybe someone has a blue - or even
a Havana brown dial ? The dial of the Aviastar is really quite pretty, with a threedimensional construction
and nicely sunken subdials.
Aviastars pop up on the sales sites infrequently, but often fail to reach the same price levels as the
abundantly available Old Navtimers, quite strange ?
Hope you like it, I decided to give it a bit more wrist time - even took a pic on a bracelet for those
who scoff at straps ....
An ancestor, a 1969 AVI:
Voila, meet the Aviastar; on bracelet:
Aviastar on brown calf:
Aviastar on honey croc (not bad at all)
