Description
For the fifth year running, Bell & Ross has produced a watch in collaboration with the Patrouille de France, the French Air and Space Force's elite aerobatic display team — but for the first time the collaboration is built on the brand's skeletonised BR-X3 platform rather than the BR-03 or BR 05 cases used in previous years. The result is the BR-X3 Patrouille de France, limited to 250 numbered pieces and priced at EUR 7,900.
It is the most ambitious entry in the Patrouille de France line by some margin. The case keeps the BR-X3's signature "circle within a square" multi-layer construction and adds blue anodised aluminium structural columns and bezel ring, colour-matched to the Alpha Jet aircraft the squadron flies. The dial is fully skeletonised, the power-reserve indicator shows the colours of the French flag, and the central seconds-hand counterweight is shaped as an Alpha Jet silhouette in profile.
Design
The 41 mm × 13.30 mm steel case is polished and satinised in alternating surfaces, with the BR-X3's recognisable inner-square / outer-circle layering between the bezel and the mid-case. The structural elements between those layers — the bezel ring and four vertical columns at the cardinal points — are executed in micro-blasted, blue anodised aluminium, with the exact shade of mid-blue used on the Alpha Jet's livery and the squadron's flight suits. The crystal is sapphire front and back; the case-back exposes the movement; water resistance is 100 m.
The dial is fully open-worked, with the power-reserve indicator at 9 o'clock rendered as a French flag (blue/white/red), and the Patrouille de France insignia at 6 o'clock. Hour and minute hands are skeletonised and luminous; the central seconds hand is in red, with a counterweight cut into the silhouette of an Alpha Jet. The watch is delivered with two straps: an openworked black rubber strap that echoes the case's industrial architecture, and a sky-blue synthetic fabric strap matching the squadron's flight-suit colour.
Specifications
- Reference: Bell & Ross BR-X3 Patrouille de France
- Case material: Stainless steel, polished and satin-finished
- Bezel and structural columns: Micro-blasted blue anodised aluminium
- Case diameter: 41 mm
- Case thickness: 13.30 mm
- Crystal: Sapphire with anti-reflective treatment
- Case-back: Sapphire
- Water resistance: 100 m
- Dial: Fully skeletonised, French-flag power reserve at 9 o'clock, Patrouille de France insignia at 6 o'clock
- Hands: Skeletonised hour and minute hands with Super-LumiNova; red central seconds hand with Alpha-Jet-shaped counterweight
- Movement: Manufacture calibre BR-CAL.323, automatic
- Certification: COSC chronometer
- Power reserve: approx. 70 hours
- Functions: Hours, minutes, central seconds, date, power reserve
- Straps included: Openworked black rubber strap; sky-blue synthetic fabric strap
- Warranty: 5 years
- Limited edition: 250 pieces, individually numbered
- Price: EUR 7,900
- Availability: Bell & Ross boutiques and authorised dealers, from May 2026
What's Exciting
Bell & Ross's annual Patrouille de France pieces have often felt more like marketing than horology — applying squadron livery to existing references, with no movement or case update specific to the collaboration. The BR-X3 Patrouille de France inverts that. It is the brand's serious chronograph-grade skeletonised manufacture platform, with the COSC-certified BR-CAL.323 visible front and back, sold for less than half of a comparable BR-X1, and given a colour palette and detail set that is unmistakably the squadron's. The Alpha-Jet seconds-counterweight is the kind of restrained military-aviation reference Bell & Ross historically does well, and the French-flag power-reserve indicator is a genuinely new way to handle a complication that usually defaults to a simple arc.
At 250 pieces and EUR 7,900, this is also priced to move within the active French-aviation collector community in particular — the rare release in the BR catalogue where the limited-edition story and the technical story line up properly.
History
The Patrouille de France is the French Air and Space Force's official aerobatic display team, founded in 1953 and operating the Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet since 1980. The squadron is one of the longest-continuously-operating aerobatic teams in the world and, alongside the Royal Air Force's Red Arrows and the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels, is among the three formations that essentially define the discipline.
Bell & Ross was founded in Paris in 1992 by Bruno Belamich and Carlos A. Rosillo, and the brand's identity has been rooted in aviation since the original BR-01 cockpit-instrument case of 2005. The Patrouille de France collaboration began in 2021, with watches released in the BR-03 (2021, 2022, 2024), BR 05 (2023) and now BR-X3 (2026) cases. The brand's BR-X line is its skeletonised manufacture flagship, with the BR-X1 chronograph as its existing high-watermark; the BR-X3 introduces a slimmer time-and-power-reserve variant. This is the first time the BR-X line has been used for a Patrouille de France release.
