Breitling Windrider Cockpit Chrono, Lady Swiss Automatic Watch Review

Navitimer exhibits several dressy characteristics while remaining a decidedly professional watch collection – Windrider timepieces do the same thing, but with casual traits.

When compared, Chronomat, Cockpit, Galactic, and Blackbird lines provide a visually more compact, simpler alternative to the complex numeral grids and layouts of the Navitimer. At its core, Windrider is a casual design (not without its streaks of luxury) ensconced in professional spirit and grit.

The build is sturdy and is sharply defined by a hefty measure of steel – in the case, lugs, bezel, and bracelets – and a few subtle gold inlays; it makes itself felt, seen, and appreciated. Dial design provides a harmonious complement to the powerful outlines: a consistently straightforward combination of heavy numerals or indexes, matched by broad hands.

The impression of force in the overall structure is impossible to ignore, and Breitling aptly dwell on the masculinity of the Windrider Cockpit. (Continue reading below to discover how Ladies timepieces contain that force.)

In a dramatic shift from the more leisurely, relaxed Navitimer, Cockpit watches carry protection for the chronograph pushers (screw-locked) and the crown (projecting from the case itself). This feature will reemerge in Avenger, Super Avenger, Colt, Professional, and other collections.

Chronograph functions have become the bread and butter of Breitling (automatic) movements, and it comes as no surprise that this well developed line has a distinct chrono version. The utility is controlled by two push buttons located on the north and south of the bulbous, crown-like, and fluted crown.

Three subdials positioned at twelve, six, and nine o'clock display the measurements; having been delineated on the dial, they blend well with their environment, unlike the more conspicuous Chronomat. This subtle camouflage quality also reappears in some Avenger watches.

Lady

Women's Cockpit reduces the weight category by means of careful refinement: smaller case diameters, more gold, mother-of-pearl and diamond set dials, silver, blue, white, and black faces, lizard or leather straps, and quartz movements that dispense with chronograph complication in favor of a more sleek profile.

It's a fascinating design in that Breitling retain the main symbols of power – large numerals, sturdy metallic build – and work around to draw more delicate contours.

Men's and women's Galactic timepieces too exchange the chronograph components for smoother looks, but their visuals have less in common with the generally intense Cockpit.

Demonstrating on its face a decorative square filled with guilloche, it stands out as universal collection that balances the casual and the dressy, the formal and the informal; it's a chameleon-like, aesthetically flexible Breitling watch collection.