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Legends of our days: Felix Baumgartner, the Man faster than sound, and his Zenith
Usually we go back centuries to find legends. But let’s stay in 2012 to recall the story of El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th joining Felix Baumgartner as he became the first human to break the barrier of speed in a free fall.
Nice stories have to be told over and over again. Inspiration usually comes from the power of examples. And seeing the courage of legends may determine us to upgrade to a better version of ourselves.
Felix Baumgartner was 43 years old and he was already trained in flying. But not from a pilot‘s perspective. We are talking about flying without the help of engines and technology. When accepting the bet to challenge the speed of sound, Felix was maybe one of the best sky-divers in the world with an experience of over 2500 dives. But his dream was to climb up above the sky and jump back on Earth. And while on his way down to break the speed of sound barrier as no one did before in humankind history. The preparations took 5 years.
The watch he would put his trust in was supposed to be as brave as him. A watch with courage and the mechanical power to resist out in the air beyond the speed of sound. Zenith El Primero looked like the perfect match. It is the first automatic chronograph in the world and it is born in a magic year for space flying – 1969. Fact. Felix is born in 1969 in the same time with the initial launch of El Primero and with Apollo 11 mission reaching the Moon.
The partnership between Felix and Zenith turned out into more than a marketing agreement.
A brand with 150 years of history is for sure a brand with the courage to try things close to impossible. So when the challenge of assisting a human being reaching speeds of over 1000 km/h arrives, you have to actually come with a special watch.
El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th is an iconic presence. The 45,5 mm diameter case is making a statement with its size and significant uni-directional bezel with ceramic insert. You can say immediately that it is a chronograph as you see the contrasting counters as well as the two buttons guarding the crown. The colours are meant to send the mind to the 1960s and to the original El Primero. But inside there is a master piece of technology. Presented first in 2011, the automatic caliber is working at a high frequency – 36000 vph compared to a normal frequency of 18000 vph in most of the watches – and it is capable of timing events with a precision of a 1/10th of a second. And this is thanks to its centre seconds hand that when timing is running as fast as it turns around the dial once every ten seconds. The technical performance goes even higher as the chronograph comes with the flyback complication. Meaning it is possible to reset and restart the timing with just the push of one button and therefore without losing any moment for to stop the chronograph before restarting.
On the historical day of October 14th 2012, in New Mexico, USA, at local time 9:28, Felix and his Zenith started to climb the clouds in a special capsule pulled up slowly by a helium-filled balloon. They arrived at the edge of space, in stratosphere – 39045 metres high above sea level – and at 12:07 Felix went out of the capsule and said: “Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you really are.” 1 minute later he jumped right into the book of world‘s history. He spent 4 minutes and 20 seconds in free fall, turned in the air to make a whole world tremble, reached the speed 1342 km/h and, after a total time of 9 minutes and 3 seconds of flying, landed safely back on earth. Strapped to his wrist, outside the spacesuit, Zenith took the same fantastic ride with a standard El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th It seems that the only difference was that instead of the usual transparent case back, the watch Felix wore had a solid steel case back. And of course, his had a long nylon strap while the initial version came with a leather strap. From that moment on, the watches hall of fame welcomed another legend. Zenith launched a special edition of the special watch under the name “Tribute to Felix Baumgartner” to make sure the world will always remember Felix breaking the speed of sound barrier. The watch looks exactly like the one of Felix, available with a metal bracelet. And today, even if the partnership ended, history will always have this wonderful story to tell. In the meantime, the fastest man in the world learned how to fly a helicopter and turned 51 years old on April 20th 2020.
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