2023-08-29 22:05:40
The independent brand unveils a daring aviation chrono, bicompax and bi-retrograde
Let’s be clear: almost no pilot flies with a mechanical watch on the wrist, on which he relies for his navigation. Garmin has long won the battle, with the D2 Air at the entry level, and the MARQ Aviator at the other end.
In mechanical watchmaking, two other areas therefore remain to be explored: inspiration and heritage. In the first register, Bell & Ross excels. In the second, the pre-eminence of Breguet suffers no dispute. What place is left for other brands? Reservoir provides a unique and different response: that of creative complication.
Airfight Chronograph
The playground of the young French brand is, as we know, that of the retrograde display. Not that, eminently classic, of Vacheron Constantin, but rather that of modernity and the universe of counters and gauges found in beautiful cars, submarines and, therefore, planes. With a central question: how to connect the aero universe, its traditional complication that is the chronograph, with the retrograde spirit of Reservoir? The answer is called Airfight Chronograh.
Airfight Chronograph © Reservoir
Retrograde double game
This novelty, available in a 43 mm steel or black PVD case, is a bi-retrograde chronograph. Its composition is unique. It is faithful to the Reservoir spirit: at first glance, we find ourselves somewhat confused. The usual chronograph markers have disappeared. Or, rather, they have been reinvented, by working with the mechanical principle of retrograde.
This is not simple here, but double. On the left, the gradation from 0 to 30 is that of the second of the movement. The hand rises to 120° and, at the end of its 30 seconds, returns to its low point to count down the next 30 seconds.
On the right, the same 120° curve is this time graduated from 0 to 31: this is the date calendar. It will therefore return to its starting point only once a month, this one having expired. Like its counterpart on the left, this section is colored with four hues: green, white, yellow, and red. We will forgive Reservoir for having reversed the color code here between car and plane: on the plate of the latter, the certified order of the beaches is white, green and orange. Red, in the conventional sense, does not exist. There are only three zones, in that order, which correspond to the speed ranges indicated for certain piloting operations (such as extending the flaps, among others).
Airfight Chronograph © Reservoir
Chrono bicompax vertical
Remains the central part of the watch. It is dedicated to the chronograph and has two counters: it is therefore, strictly speaking, a vertical bicompax chrono. The top counter is dedicated to counting down 30 minutes. The bottom one, at 12 o’clock. The seconds are counted down by the large central hand, alongside the hours and minutes.
Note its airplane-shaped counterweight. In this respect, he can only reinforce the already latent parallel with IWC: the Schaffhausen manufacture is very present in aviation (“Pilot’s Watch” collection), one of the few that makes long-lasting use of the vertical bicompax chrono, and of which a good number of models (including the “Top Gun”) see their second hand terminated by a cutout in the shape of an airplane wing. A prestigious inspiration of which Reservoir should not be ashamed, especially since, for the most part, its mechanical and aesthetic construction can proudly claim as much creativity as originality. Two qualities that have become rare in the world of the aviation chronograph which, unfortunately, too often delights in self-replicating.
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