Up in the air

Image
Up in the air - Richard Mille
Richard Mille keeps updating its first generation classics. The RM 21-01 shows what can be achieved with some rose gold, some white and a very solid technical platform.

The RM 021 Tourbillon Aerodyne hadn't made a splash when it was first launched. Richard Mille was on everyone's radar, but not under a microscope, prestigious, but not all the way up there as it is today. Plus it was one of those original, almost exotic propositions from the brand, because the public hadn't yet reached sufficient understanding of their ability to include out-of-this-world materials. For instance, on top of its tourbillon, this calibre was built on a mainplate made of titanium and honeycombed orthorhombic titanium aluminide with a carbon nanofiber core (there's a mouthful), borrowed form the airspace industry.

Up in the air



Since then, many of the first generation RMs have been updated. The Aerodyne was patiently waiting its turn and the 50 pieces of the RM 21-01 are a more muscular version of it, in a new livery. On the one hand it's been given a shot of testosterone, with the crenelated Carbon TPT bezel first issued on the RM 11-03. On the other hand, the RM 21-01 Tourbillon Aerodyne gets a little softer with a wider and more cambered case made of Carbon TPT and red gold (all the way down to the movement).

Up in the air

The tourbillon and barrel bridges, shaped in a beaming array, remain, as those were one the characteristics of the original. As for the honeycombed orthorhombic mainplate, whose structural function is the RM 021's central concept, it's evolved as well. Instead of titanium and its derivatives, it's now made of Carbon TPT and Haynes 214, a blue, complex, nickel-chromium-aluminum-iron alloy with ultra high resistance to oxydation and high temperature. Its lightness, and link with state of the art airspace manufacturing, gave the RM021 and 21-01 the name Aerodyne.

Featured brand