With the arrival of the 4th generation, embodied by the Type XX Chronographe 2067 and Type 20 Chronographe 2057, modern interpretations of the original models created by Breguet back in 1954 at the request of the French Air Force, the highly exclusive caliber 728 and its 7281 variant made their debut in the collection. These reliable movements benefit from contemporary mechanics, embracing all the technical advances undertaken by the watchmaking Manufacture and enabling, notably thanks to flyback function, precise and instantaneous measurement of short times.
The flyback function, an additional chronograph function invented by Longines in 1936, saves a great deal of time, a considerable advantage in the 1950s for military aviators for whom every minute or even every second could prove decisive since they sometimes had to navigate by sight, and didn’t have the modern tools of today’s pilots, since it enables them to stop a count, reset it and start a new one by pressing the piston-shaped push-button at 4 o’clock on the right-hand side of the case.
One gesture is all it takes to perform three manipulations, to measure successive intervals of time rapidly on totalizers installed on the dial, with the minutes displayed at around 3 o’clock in a counter deliberately oversized to be legible at a glance, and the hours at 6 o’clock. Equipped with a vertical clutch mechanism and a column wheel, the self-winding Calibre 728 offers formidable efficiency thanks to its high precision, notably thanks to its high frequency of 5hz (36,000 vibrations per hour).
