After it revolutionized pilots?-watch design with its dashboard-clock-inspired BR 01, one might have expected Bell & Ross to rest on the laurels of that flagship model but the watchmaker did anything but, turning to an array of other onboard aviation devices ? from radar screens to altimeters to gyrocompasses, to produce the inventive and exclusive Flight Instrument collection.

Bell & Ross was founded in 1992 but the watershed moment for its brand identity came in 2005, with the launch of the BR 01 Instrument, a deft translation of an aircraft dashboard clock into a wristwatch. The model established the bold, dark, square-cased aesthetic that has come to define the aviation-influenced watch company, founded by the French duo of Bruno (?Bell?) Belamich and Carlos (?Ross?) Rosillo, ever since. As the BR 01 watch and its various descendants achieved modern icon status in subsequent years, it is now clear that Belamich the designer and Rosillo the businessman were already contemplating what they would do for an encore, and the answer is evident in a series of inventive, idiosyncratic timepieces that have been collectively dubbed the Flight Instrument Collection. Proving that the original BR 01 was anything but a one-trick pony, the watches, which all use the groundbreaking BR 01 as their template, have launched in stages over the past decade, each taking inspiration from a different vital instrument on an aircraft control panel.
?Many watch brands are inspired...