Tudor x The Flying Bulls — Now the Brand Conquers the Sky

It is starting to become a pattern. Tudor throws itself into the absolute coolest and craziest sports in the world. Big-wave surfing? Done. World-class cycling? Of course. Formula 1 and the Dakar Rally? Absolutely.

But flying an 80-year-old aerobatic plane at the edge of the flight envelope, or piloting a helicopter upside down — that is still next level, and that is exactly what The Flying Bulls are.

Born to Dare — for real

Tudor launched its “Born to Dare” campaign in 2017, and at first it was mostly a nice slogan. But look at how the brand has built its identity since then and it is hard not to be impressed. It is not about sponsored posts and marketing shots — it is about actually putting the watch on the wrists of the people who do these sports.

The Flying Bulls are an Austrian aviation group with roots in a late-1980s meeting between pilot Sigi Angerer and Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz. Angerer, a Tyrolean Airways pilot whose true love was historic planes, went looking for an affordable warbird, found a North American T-28B and took it back to Innsbruck for restoration. He soon added a Grumman G44 Widgeon and a Chance Vought F4U-4 Corsair; Mateschitz saw the Corsair and felt it immediately: that is Red Bull with wings. Figuratively and literally.

Today The Flying Bulls have 12 pilots and a fleet of 45 aircraft — everything from rare historic propeller machines to modern aerobatic helicopters that can be flown upside down. They tour the world performing manoeuvres that seem to break the laws of physics. And now they do it with a Tudor on the wrist — among them the Black Bay 58 GMT.

It is not the first time Tudor has sought out the extreme

We watch nerds have followed Tudor closely, and it is clear this is not a random collaboration. Tudor has systematically built a portfolio of partners and disciplines that all share one thing: that feeling of genuinely meaning it.

Big-wave surfing is perhaps the most visually brutal of them all. Tudor has long had a connection to the surf world, and big-wave surfing is the discipline’s rawest form — we are talking about paddling out toward waves of ten metres or more, with the ocean as the only witness. It is a sport where mistakes do not give you a second chance, and Tudor’s presence there feels authentic rather than opportunistic.

Cycling is another dimension. The Tudor Pro Cycling Team races at WorldTour level and represents the brand in the toughest stage races in the world. There is something liberating about a watch company that does not just stick its logo on a car but actually builds its own team.

Formula 1 barely needs an introduction. Tudor is an official partner of the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls team in one of the world’s most technology-intensive and closely watched sports. It is about millisecond precision, and that suits a Swiss watch brand like a hand in a glove.

The Dakar Rally is for those who think Formula 1 is a little too tidy. Dakar is chaos, desert, machinery breaking down in the middle of nowhere, and drivers racing for days on end. Tudor and Dakar have a natural kinship — robustness and endurance under extreme conditions are exactly what the Pelagos and Black Bay are designed for.

And now, the sky

Aviation is a natural next part of this story. The Flying Bulls are not a display team in the ordinary sense — they are one of the most respected groups in general aviation in the world. Flying aerobatics in an 80-year-old aircraft requires a combination of technical knowledge, absolute precision, and a willingness to operate right at the edge of what is possible. It is same same but different compared to surfing a ten-metre wave or rallying across the Sahara.

What Tudor does, and does well, is find environments where the watch is actually needed. Not as a status symbol but as a tool. A pilot in the cockpit of a Douglas DC-6B flying around the world’s time zones needs to know what time it is — just as a big-wave surfer needs to know how long she has held her breath.

Why we like this

As watch nerds we love seeing brands live the way they say they do. Tudor could have stayed “Rolex’s little brother at a lower price” — and it would have worked. Instead they have chosen to build an identity that is genuinely their own, with partners and disciplines that communicate something specific: that life is too short to take it easy.

The Flying Bulls collaboration is beautiful in that way. It is not the most obvious choice. It is not the safest. But it is definitely the boldest. And that is exactly what Born to Dare is supposed to mean. Now we are just waiting for Tudor to dive into base jumping or deep-sea submarines. At this point, nothing would be surprising. For more of Tudor’s recent moves, see our piece on its trail-running ambassadors.