During the SIHH 2011 event, Richard Mille presented its RM 030 model with a so-called “declutchable” rotor: a complication that, unlike something as unnecessarily sophisticated as a tourbillon or a minute repeater, is not just nice to have but is actually quite useful for many reasons.
Designed to slow down the process of wearing-out of the self-winding mechanism, the declutchable rotor is what it is: a rotor that, colloquially speaking, disengages its “clutch” the same way an automatic gearbox declutches, um, automatically when you press on the brake pedal while stopping at a traffic light. In this particular instance, the winding system is physically disengaged from the winding barrel as soon as the estimated power reserve reaches the 50-hour mark.
