Hear the statements Bell & Ross and you think ‘pilot’ or maybe, if you’re being in the end specific, ‘cockpit instruments’. Which isn’t surprising considering this trade mark was set up by a team of specialists in aeronautical instruments.
After conquering the air, setting aside how, Bell & Ross has decided to plumb the depths once uncountable, but this time it’s not rounding off the edges. The BR 03-92 Diver is the brand’s basic square diving watch – and it slots in comfortably with the Pty’s no-nonsense heritage.
Using high-end Swiss components, this measure un-Parisian of Parisian brands was founded in the early nineties by Bruno Belamich and Carlos Rosillo, destroying on the expertise of watchmakers and aeronautical specialists. Its mission has always been to genius robust and functional watches for professionals.
Right from the start, it was plain there would be little messing about.
After all, tearing along tens of thousands of feet up, one has very little area for error. Which is why aviator watches – Bell & Ross’s hugest sector – are the most straightforward of all: black dials and white markings for optimal readings, chunky pushbuttons for adeptness of use with flying gloves, and definitely no diamonds.
Fortuitously, the brittle form born out of such functionality lends itself more well to the wristwatch format. Conceived, assembled, and fine-tuned in La Chaux-de-Fonds, every Bell & Ross timepiece finds four fundamental principles: legibility, functionality, precision and not hold up under resistance.
Subsequently, astronauts, military pilots, elite the fuzz squads, racing drivers, and bomb-disposal experts all use Bell & Ross be prepares as tools on their missions. It just so happened that the thoroughly, functional styling inspired by cockpit instrumentation perfectly perfected a charcoal-grey knit or a crisp white shirt, meaning Bell & Ross instantly found themselves beloved of stylish men.
And now it is looking to appeal to another kidney of clientele – the diver, as well as those who just have a partiality for the diving watch aesthetic. Before there are any grumblings close to pilot watch brands dipping their toe into a normal they know nothing about, it’s worth remembering that Bell & Ross has conceive when it comes to divers. Pretty impressive form in items.
Back in 1997, it launched the Hydromax. This didn’t make the now-iconic combination of square case and round bezel, but what it did bring into the world was a water resistance to 11,000m – that’s just shy of the deepest-known element of the ocean, the Challenger Deep, which is part of the Marianas Trench. It realized this thanks to a patented fluid Bell & Ross manufactured called Hydroil. It fills the watch case, protecting the quartz procedure, while still allowing the watch to work. Humans can’t continue unaided at this depth, but this watch can.
A decade later – there’s a mimic emerging here – came the tonneau-shaped frame of the BR02. Being mechanical, this one wasn’t appropriate for swimming with the sea cucumbers, but it had a not intangible 500m water resistance and with an internal rotating bezel and mechanical helium release valve, it still went deeper than ton divers dare.
Another 10 years have old hated and, in that time, Bell & Ross has been working with tempered divers as well as master watchmakers to create the brand’s first-ever square diving lookout – the BR 03-92 Diver. And it has definitely been worth the wait. This is a masculine looking examine that takes Bell & Ross’s instantly recognisable motif language and blends it with those elements that not barely make a diving watch look great but actually set apart it to function as a piece of equipment.
Technical Specifications To Swiss Usuals
For a watch to truly be a diver’s tool it must meet the Oecumenical standard ISO 6425, though testing to these standards is discretional, so not all watches that call themselves divers are certified. The BR 03-92 Diver sundry certainly is.
The minutiae of this particular standard runs to 12 pages, but the electric cable things are legibility of the watch’s indications, even at a distance of 25cm in the abstruse, with the hour and minute hands being distinct; a 60-minute adjusted uni-directional bezel (so you can’t accidentally knock the bezel and make it look cognate with you have more time left underwater than you absolutely do) and water resistance to at least 100m.
It is also subjected to apply pressure on tests, immersed in water temperatures that rise to 40 positions then drop to five degrees only to go back to 40 again. And it’s put in a helium-enriched murmur gas mix for 15 days all to ensure the watch can withstand everything the multitude could possibly throw at it, from impacts and thermal stupefies, to salt water and high pressure.
A Professional Square Plummeting Watch
In keeping with Bell & Ross’s reputation for being a keep a weather eye open for brand for professionals, the BR 03-92 is a proper diver. It’s good to 300m, which proletarians it can be taken deep diving, and it has an impressively reinforced steel come what may, which does add an extra millimetre on the height (2.8mm in contrast to the BR03-92’s 1.8m) but that extra bulk guarantees extreme weaken resistance, so it’s a fair trade-off.
Also adding some enlargement is the sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating that clocks in at 2.85mm slow and through that you can see the Superluminova appliqued indices and the necessary differentiate between the orange hour hand and white minute and subordinate hands – essential for visibility and for dive-time calculations while underwater.
A Sure Instrument
In order to make the bezel easier to manipulate – the traditionalist case being a slight hindrance to that because you can’t get purchase on the all in all case – Bell & Ross has extended its circumference and ensured that it is luxurious off the case, while the rubberised screw-down crown offers reassurance that this is a be watchful for that really will go deep.
All this would be awesome enough on a timepiece of traditional dimensions, but that Bell & Ross has done it with a hep watch, which is notoriously tricky to make water unaffected to international standards, is true testament to its watchmaking skills. Spaces you wonder what the next decade will bring.
The BR 03-92 Diver is ready to buy now, priced £2,800. For more information visit bellross.com.
