In many ways, that decision set in stone a process we had started with Brave New World. The world of media had become so shallow, so short term, that it had effectively disowned us. There was, therefore, no point in pandering to ancient history either, unless of course you wanted to write a song about Alexander the Great. Which, of course, we had.
To the outside world, it looked like madness to play a whole album of new material. To us, though, it was essential in order to lay down a marker with what was an increasingly young fan base. There were kids whose first Iron Maiden record was Brave New World, not The Number of the Beast. They were the future and they were the people to carry the torch for the band. It was for them that we played that album. It was a gamble, but we rolled the dice anyway.
Mainstream media and Maiden had always been unreliable bedfellows, and now we effectively kicked them into the long grass. Anything in the future would be on our terms, as the internet was becoming increasingly useful, a trend that has, by and large, continued.
The airline was now at nine aircraft and would shortly grow to 11, with five 757s, five 737s and an Airbus A320. Even as a small airline, we had over 500 employees, and there was always a need for captains. We had a lot of over-55, ex-British Airways guys, but the supply had dried up, and soon pilots would no longer retire at 55 but work, like everyone else, till 65. Most pilots wanted to, anyway.
Unlike the big behemoth airlines with hundreds of crew and Byzantine seniority rules, we were small and operated on a pragmatic promotion system based on demand and merit. As an experienced first officer, I had been assessed as suitable for command training, the first of several hoops to jump through before becoming a captain.
The bulk of my training came after our short A Matter of the Beast tour, and a good job too, because becoming a commander requires your full attention.
I flew to Hurghada in Egypt, Uralsk in Kazakhstan, Mykonos and various other points in between. The time rapidly approached for my check flight. All boxes ticked and all quizzes answered, I turned up to fly to the tricky little airfield of Calvi, in Corsica.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, initially nothing. It was a sunny day and the winds were light. Calvi is a one-way-in, one-way-out airfield, on account of the bloody great mountain at the end of the runway. It’s a captain-only landing, so I flew it on the basis that I would end up as a captain or not at the end of the day.
The landing was fine; we disgorged the passengers and I started on the flight paperwork. Then I noticed two official-looking chaps staring at me from outside the cockpit window. I wound it open.
‘Ramp check,’ one shouted.
A ‘ramp check’ is a sort of mini-inspection by the authorities – in this case the French DGAC – to ensure safe operational standards. I welcomed them aboard, made them a cup of coffee and they started pulling apart our documentation: flight plans, navigational logs – all standard stuff. And, of course, there were no problems.
‘I just need to see your licence and medical.’
So I showed them. All in order.
‘And the other pilot. Where is he?’
Well, the other pilot, my check pilot, had visited the toilets at the rear. I paid a visit. He cracked open the toilet door.
‘They want to see your licence,’ I said.
‘I haven’t got it,’ he hissed.
‘What?’
‘It’s in my other jacket, in Redhill.’
‘Can’t someone get hold of it?’
‘No. I’m the only person with keys.’
‘Shit.’
I went back to the cockpit. I made another coffee for them. Maybe I could persuade them to go away.
‘Ah,’ I said, ‘we are just starting to board. Is there anything else you would like to see?’
‘No,’ they replied. ‘Just the other pilot with his licence.’
‘Ah.’ I owned up to the problem.
They laughed. ‘This is not the first time this has happened. Simply fax us a copy and you can be on your way.’
Before electronic records, our operations department kept copies of licence details in a filing cabinet. I phoned Gatwick.
‘Oh, sorry,’ they said. ‘We don’t have keys to the cabinet and it’s a bank holiday weekend. The only person who has the keys is away.’
This was turning into a farce.
‘Look. You’ll have to break into the cabinet. I don’t care how you do it.’
My check pilot finally appeared, suitably apologetic, but there was no moving the officials. We sat and waited. The aircraft was fuelled up and ready. I could sense the problems already arising with the passengers. I would have to say something over the PA.
The phone rang; it was operations: ‘Okay, the fire brigade are coming.’
‘What?’
‘Yes. They have a big axe and they are going to chop the cabinet open.’
The image of Crawley Fire Brigade wreaking destruction in our small ops room to obtain a photocopy raised an internal chuckle.
An hour later, the document arrived and we finally took off for Gatwick. As we approached 41,000 feet the left-hand engine overheat light came on. We nursed it back to Gatwick at reduced power till it seemed to operate normally at lower altitudes.
Back at Gatwick, check passed, I pondered the day’s experience.
‘What could possibly go wrong?’ Anything. And if it can, it will.
Bruce Air
It was 10 July 2007. I was a Boeing 757 captain. I would never have believed it possible when I sat in that tiny Cessna 152 in Kissimmee back in 1992. How the world turns.
The world was turning in the film department as well. Finally, we had a trickle of funding, and we had found our star in classical actor Simon Callow, who had wanted to play Crowley for years. A special-effects company contributed a sort of benefit in kind (but no cash), and we ended up with a budget of half a million pounds to make the feature. Along the way I had to make a presentation to a bunch of ‘high net-worth’ individuals about the movie, in the hope of raising cash. It was a thoroughly depressing experience. There was a banker with a convoluted tax scheme, pie charts, graphs and the phrase ‘even if it tanks, you make money’.
Great. That really set the stage for my presentation on what the film was all about, and what artistic effect they could achieve for their money. For the most part, they fiddled with their phones or laptops, then left. Feeling grumpy, I spied one enthusiastic soul still drinking coffee and, shock horror, actually smiling.
‘Hi. Are you going to put some money into the film?’ I said.
‘Oh no, certainly not,’ he smiled back.
‘Well, if it’s not a rude question, why are you still here? The coffee is lousy.’
‘Mmm. You see, I have a project I need to raise money for, and I heard about this tax scheme, so I thought I would tag along and try to copy it.’
This was the most interesting man I had met all day.
‘What’s your project?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I’m Roger Munk and I build airships.’
I had seen this man before. He was a visionary who had recreated the modern airship, before advocating, in a Discovery Channel documentary, a revolutionary hybrid vehicle – combining hovercraft, airship and aeroplane – that would travel point to point with large payloads for a fraction of the fuel cost and inconvenience of using airports then trucks or railways. I was enthused.
‘Come up and see me sometime,’ he said. He gave me his card. The address was the hangar at Cardington where the R101 airship had been built. I had the plastic kit when I lived in Worksop. Nothing in childhood is ever wasted. I would go to see him, but not yet.
First, I had my other crazy plan to attend to – a round-the-world tour in a 757 with the band, crew and equipment on board. The legendary Ed Force One was in preparation.
The basic idea for the whole scenario had already been rehearsed on the Skunkworks tour, but the justification of a tour costing millions required more than just
the basis that ‘this might be fun’. Although, frankly, in the spirit of rock ’n’ roll, what more justification is needed?
Fundamentally, the case for Ed Force One depended on two strands coming together. First, we as a band had a requirement to tour all the odd and out-of-the-way places in the world. On the internet we were being hounded by thousands of fans who were demanding to see us. Second, we needed a big, cheap aeroplane.
Ed Force One worked out because of the vagaries of the aviation industry. Rock’s peak touring time in the biggest southern-hemisphere markets is late summer, in other words February and March. This is exactly the northern-hemisphere winter period during which a European airline such as Astraeus would chew its arm off to have an aircraft on a two-month contract. There was a cheap deal to be done.
A perfect storm came together: an airline that needed to do a deal, a band that needed access to markets to satisfy its fans and an income versus expenditure that meant the price was right. After crunching the numbers, it made unexpected business sense. We only intended to go round the world once, but ended up doing it three times in rapid succession, such was the success of the concept. Like most things, the devil was in the detail.
The 757 had to be extensively modified, and the rear of it, where passengers normally sat, was turned into a cargo compartment. The airline had to negotiate various hurdles before the final form and shape of the structure was agreed. A bulkhead was installed between passengers and cargo – in fact, it was the old flight-deck door, obsolete since 9/11. In the cargo compartment a steel floor reinforcement was installed plus a cargo liner around the roof and side walls, which involved removing the rear toilets and galley.
To meet European regulations, smoke detectors monitored whether the drum kit might spontaneously combust and, even if it did, cameras were fitted so the flight deck could observe the event.
Last but by no means least, giant cuboid bags were constructed, which were designed to be fireproof, and these engulfed the equipment strapped to the reinforced-steel floor plates.
The fire testing of the bags was farcical. Petrol bombs were hurled inside them, and they were promptly extinguished due to lack of oxygen. After several more attempts to provoke disaster, the authorities gave up and issued a safety certificate. After two hours of trying to set fire to the bags, the surface of them was barely warm to the touch.
We did have one exceptional problem, however. There was a severe lack of storage space on the aircraft for food and water. The enormous rear galley had been removed and was off-limits during flight. Nevertheless, the storage space was available, so we asked the Civil Aviation Authority the question: ‘Can we use the rear galley space for stores?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Fire hazard.’
‘What about storing water?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Fire hazard.’
There are some things that are just not worth arguing about.
The back story to Ed Force One actually began in Paris. When I was flying the 737 I came up with the idea of flying a bunch of Maiden fans to a show and back. Predictably, I called the concept ‘Bruce Air’.
I chartered the aircraft myself, and put together a team to administer tickets, a rather splendid goody bag unique to the experience and a chaperone to supervise ground transportation and overnight hotels, if required. There were trips to Paris, Milan, Prague and Trondheim, to name but a few.
The Paris trip stands out – if only for having the most number of sick bags I have ever had to deal with on an aircraft.
When we took off from Le Bourget there was no realisation of just how serious the weather would be at Gatwick. A freak line of thunderstorms was moving swiftly towards the airport. The turbulence was excessive, and it was barely possible to read the flight instruments. The normal headwind at Gatwick had sheared to a 50-knot tailwind. A poor Flybe turboprop was on final approach when the controller told him the bad news. The pilot didn’t seem so happy, but then again our passengers weren’t delirious with joy either. The aircraft was battered at the storm’s edge. I was weaving in and out of nasty red lumps showing on the radar screen.
A squall line of extremely violent storms had suddenly appeared from the south-west and, as we transited it, the cabin was tossed around like a log flume in an amusement park. The punters were not amused.
Gatwick was shut, and everything was grounded. Wind shear is a very hazardous weather phenomenon that can bring down airliners. It is a sudden and often powerful change of wind direction, so much so that the wings of an aircraft lose lift. A lone British Airways aircraft took off underneath us. He radioed to the tower: ‘For your information, at 1,000 feet we had zero rate of climb, with full power.’
Normally, the rate of climb would be 2,000–3,000 feet per minute, with reduced power, so this indicated an extremely hazardous situation. We waited another 20 minutes for the storm to pass, and then landed. An array of passengers slumped off the plane, faces either white or green, having accounted for at least 25 very full sick bags.
‘Bruce Air’ as a mini-charter-excursion project continued for a while, until I broached the subject of Ed Force One with Rod. To my amazement he thought it was a very exciting idea. It tied in so many different strands. It was win-win both for the airline and Iron Maiden. And it was not just a way for me to keep flying; it was something that genuinely seemed to seize the imagination of the whole world.
On Ed Force One we carried three pilots at all times, which included me. This was not just for crew rest, but insurance against sickness. For good measure, all of our pilots were captains.
The very first stop was India, and we refuelled on the way to Mumbai at Baku in Azerbaijan. The only crisis thus far was running out of beer.
Mumbai was charming, and we stayed in an excellent hotel – so far, so good. From Mumbai we were to fly to Perth, with a refuel stop just west of Singapore. I was being rested – I had just done a show – so I checked in with everyone else. In a T-shirt and shorts, sitting in row one, I declined the glass of white wine in favour of coffee, white, one sugar.
Alan Haile, the captain for the day, was his usual chirpy self. I stuck my head in on the flight deck for five minutes then left them to it. Two hours into the flight, I got a tap on the shoulder from our senior cabin-crew member: ‘Could you pop in the cockpit?’
It was not an anti-aircraft missile or an engine failure that might cause us to land prematurely. Captain Haile was looking anything but hearty. He was slowly turning grey. We went through his breakfast menu: he had been sunk by the Mumbai sausage. I stayed around.
At first he protested: ‘No, no. I’m fine.’
I waited.
‘Actually, I’m not fine,’ and he jumped out of his seat and retired to the toilet – and then to the back of the aircraft. I didn’t see him again for three days.
This is why we have three pilots, I thought as I strapped in.
It was a long night. We refuelled at Banda Aceh, and I had never seen so many ships in all my life as we flew over Singapore on the way in. Refuelling was protracted, as we argued about who would pay the bill (it was supposed to be prepaid), until someone found the fax under a pile of papers in a chaotic-looking office.
We landed at Perth just as the sun was rising on a glorious day. The Aussies had never seen a 757 before and had no towbar for it, so we parked up in the middle of nowhere.
Unloading was unique to this machine, as was loading it. We had to explain the routine to the ground handlers and emphasise the need to be careful not to wreck the main doors at the rear. Every piece of equipment had to fit through those doors, and a ham-fisted handler could easily damage the seals or door slides – which would have grounded the aircraft.
The sun was well up in the heavens by the time the plane was empty. The other captain and I had been abandoned. The transport had gone and everyone was asleep. Great. Luckily, the local customs officer was a cheery soul.
‘Hey guys,’ he said. ‘I’ll get them to open up the VIP suite for ya. At least we can shut the plane up.’
Ahh. Aussie hospitality at its best – or so I thought.
The VIP suite had some comfy sofas and a well-stocked bar. Frankly, we both deserved a beer. Thank you, Mr Victoria Bitter. As we sat back, dog-tired, and savoured our beer, what sounded like a character created by Barry Humphries boomed down the corridor: ‘No spirits – only beer. And no bloody musicians!’
A very hostile-looking host of the VIP suite appeared at the door, eyes squinting at us. He peered closely at me – trainers, shorts, but I was wearing a hi-vis jacket.
‘You. You’re not a bloody musician, are you?’
‘Me? Heavens, no. Both pilots.’
‘Yeah, well, I bloody don’t like ’em. I had that bloody Sting in here once. Some eco bollocks to do with the Prime Minister. Anyway, no bloody spirits.’
Welcome back to Australia.
We didn’t so much romp around Australia as tour its extensive toilet facilities. The pernicious Indian bug laid low almost everyone in various stages of incapacitation. Steve has always had a sensitive tummy and suffered more than most of us, but the dressing room on occasion looked like a dysentery triage outpost.
The schedule was punishing on these tours. It had to be in order to justify the costs, but the results were outstanding. In essence, we were doing gigs with the same regularity as in Europe, except that instead of London to Antwerp overnight, we were doing Tokyo to Los Angeles. Jet lag was extreme, and it troubled Adrian in particular. Because we were going the ‘wrong’ way round the world, we ‘lost’ time continually.
I planned it that way for two reasons. Firstly, we needed to be awake at 9 p.m. local time every night, with our bodies ready to jump around and perform. Going the ‘right’ way round the world means that by 9 p.m. your body is saying, ‘It’s two in the morning – go to sleep!’
The disadvantage of my plan was that opportunities for sightseeing and a social life were curtailed. It was impossible to go to bed until dawn, and hence you didn’t wake up till 4 p.m. My attitude was that we were there to work and to perform at our peak. If we had to find a pub at 4 a.m. to socialise then so be it.
What Does This Button Do? Page 28
