Flight 666 to take off

Heavy metal veterans Iron Maiden are making their film debut in a new feature length documentary following them on tour.

Titled Flight 666, it is also the name of Maiden’s specially-converted Boeing 757, which flies them between gigs.

The plane is flown by the band’s singer Bruce Dickinson, who is also a qualified commercial pilot.

Iron Maiden say the film, set for release on 21 April, gives unprecedented access to the band.

They regard their Somewhere Back In Time World Tour, in February and March of 2008, as one of their most ambitious.

They played 23 sold-out stadium and arena shows in 45 days, travelling nearly 44,000 miles and performing to almost half a million fans in 13 countries.

Their customised plane carried the crew and 12 tons of music and stage equipment.

The band were followed by an award-winning documentary team from Canada, behind films like Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and Global Metal.

There has been a spate of metal documentaries in recent years, starting with Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster in 2004 to last year’s The Story of Anvil.

Iron Maiden have also been nominated for a best live act at this year’s Brit Awards, to be held at London’s Earls Court on 18 February.

News for passengers on Bruce Air

A personal message from Captain Bruce Dickinson

Dear 666 passenger,

I am gutted to have to tell you that Astraeus Airlines have been forced to remove the Iron Maiden decals (artwork transfers) from the Boeing 757 and that its now highly unlikely that operational proceedures will allow enough time to have the Ed Force One livery reinstated for my Bruce Air trips.

When we originally commissioned the 757 from Astraeus it was due to be reverted back to their normal airline branding at the end of the first leg of our tour.  However Astraeus were getting such great feedback from passengers and airports around our tour, that they asked if they could retain the Iron Maiden decals when they took the plane back for their own normal charter flights.  We thought this was great and it has since been flying European and Middle East routes with spectacular reaction.

Unfortunately for us, ‘Ed Force One’ was the only plane available from the Astraeus fleet to fly a new and regular route into and out of an African country on a recent new route.  The striking Iron Maiden imagery had a violent reaction from the locals as they regarded the artwork, particularly that of Eddie, as very bad ju ju. Not only would local passengers refuse to board the plane because of the artwork, but other passengers were refusing to board planes of other airlines parked nearby in case they were tainted by the evil spirits!  This resulted in some furore among the attending passengers and even more among the airlines involved!  As the liveried 757 is owned and maintained by Astraeus, they had no alternative but to strip off all the Iron Maiden artwork and return the plane to its usual livery to be able to continue on the new route .

As most seats on these trips were taken up before I announced that we would be using Ed Force One (Warsaw/Prague was already sold out), I really hope this isn’t too much of a disappointment to you, and I much look forward to welcoming you aboard Bruce Air Flight AEU 666.
The team at ICT will keep you advised of any developments.
Best wishes,

Bruce