A MYTHICAL PILOT, A LEGENDARY FLIGHT AND A TRULY RELIABLE COMPANION

The pilot was the French engineer Louis Blériot (1872-1936), known as "the father of aeronautics", builder of the Blériot XI monoplane, and a daring pioneer of flight. In just under 37 minutes he covered almost 40 km of sea at about 60 km per hour. There were neither radar nor sophisticated equipment on board, but just a reliable "wrist" companion, the Type 20 ZENITH watch. This brand was among the first to have built flight instruments, altimeters and chronometer clocks. The Zenith was founded by Georges Favre-Jacot in the Canton of Neuchatel in 1865. Blériot won the generous prize of 1000 pounds, offered as a prize by the London newspaper Daily Mail for those who managed to fly La Manica first and became famous throughout the world for his business. He was the first builder of aircraft in series, he obtained the first patent of an airplane pilot released in France and his Zenith Type 20 watch was equally famous. In 1962, the year in which the man set foot on the Moon, the Swiss House launched Zenith El Primero, the first automatic chronograph caliber in history. A time machine of a very high precision which "moved" from Paris to New York, not on the pilot's wrist, but fixed on the outside of the aircraft, mounted on the landing wheel!