Iron Maiden Has Unveiled A New 747 Tour Plane Piloted By Its Lead Singer

Why ‘Run To the Hills’ when you can fly over them?

British heavy metal veterans Iron Maiden have unveiled a 747 jumbo jet that will be piloted by frontman Bruce Dickinson during the band’s upcoming world tour. 

The fully-branded passenger plane is dubbed Ed Force One after Maiden’s zombie mascot, Eddie, whose skeletal visage has appeared on all their album covers, as well as the new plane’s tail. 

Dickinson, who has worked as a commercial airline pilot and flew previous Ed Force Ones, released a statement explaining why Maiden upgraded to the 232-foot long 747, which can be seen here touching down in Cardiff, Wales this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HieCLw90EJw

“The greatest benefit of traveling in a 747 is that because of its colossal size and freight capacity we can carry our stage production and all our stage equipment and desks in the cargo hold without having to make any of the immense structural modifications needed to do this on the previous 757, the extent of which fans will have noted on the Flight 666 DVD.”

Dickinson, a longtime renaissance man who is an accomplished fencer and brews Iron Maiden-branded ale when he’s not flying planes or belting out Maiden standards like “The Trooper” on stage, explained his obsession with flying during a 2013 visit to Boeing in the somewhat surreal video above. 

Iron Maiden’s world tour, in support of their album The Book Of Souls, kicks off February 24 in Sunrise, Florida. And let’s face it, if the ’80s stalwarts are still flying around in an Eddie-adorned private jumbo jet, they must be doing something right.