Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson is helping launch the world’s biggest aircraft.
The BBC reports the singer is both an investor and spokesperson for The Hybrid Air Vehicle (HAV), named Airlander, which can stay airborne for up to three weeks and will be vital in delivering several tons of humanitarian aid.
With a length of 302ft (92m), the new airship is about 60ft longer than the biggest airliners, the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8. It is also almost 30ft longer than the massive cargo-carrying Antonov An-225, which until now was the longest aircraft ever built.
"It's a game changer, in terms of things we can have in the air and things we can do," explains Dickinson. "The airship has always been with us, it's just been waiting for the technology to catch up."
The pilot and Iron Maiden singer wants to drum up publicity with the kind of trip Richard Branson would dream up: a non-stop flight around the world - twice.
"It seizes my imagination. I want to get in this thing and fly it pole to pole," he says. "We'll fly over the Amazon at 20ft, over some of the world's greatest cities and stream the whole thing on the internet."
In the spring of 2012, Dickinson and partner Mario Fulgoni launched Cardiff Aviation as a major commercial airline maintenance repair and overhaul operation in South Wales. The company is based at the Twin Peaks hangar at St. Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Iron Maiden kick off their 2014 live dates May 31 at the Fortarock Festival in Nijmegen, Netherlands.
The summer tour will round off the band’s Maiden England World Tour, which will end with a headline performance at the UK Sonisphere Festival in July as part of the 40th Anniversary celebrations at Knebworth Park.
By the end of the tour the band will have played 102 shows in 32 countries to well over two million fans since starting in the USA in June 2012.
See also:
Iron Maiden add dates to summer tour
Iron Maiden bassist’s Bahamas property raided by armed robbers
Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Aerosmith to headline Hellfest 2014
Metallica and Iron Maiden to headline Sonisphere Festival
Search Iron Maiden at hennemusic
