IRON MAIDEN vocalist Bruce Dickinson, who is a licensed commercial pilot, last year set up a state-of the-art Boeing 737 flight simulator at London's Heathrow Airport and is holding training sessions for members of the Iron Maiden Fan Club.
Video footage of an IRON MAIDEN fan by the name of Sulamita Garcia "flying" with Bruce can be seen below. She wrote afterwards, "[Even though we were in] a 737 simulator, it's as realistic as it gets. Plus, meeting my hero turn[ed] out to be even better in person. Best day ever!"
This full-motion flight simulator was purchased by Bruce and ex-Astraeus colleague Mario Fulgioni as part of their aviation business, training and checking pilots and crews from many airlines. In fact, Bruce did his own pilot training in a 737 simulator just like this one.
For those of you with good memories you might also recall that a 737 was the very first plane to bear the Bruce Air moniker when Flight 666 took its maiden voyage to Paris back in November 2003.
You will taxi the aeroplane around a major international airport, line up on the runway and perform the take-off. If you're good enough, you'll do the landing too!
In between take-off and landing, you will be shown the real performance capabilities of a modern airliner and experience the most advanced cockpit visuals.
You can book a slot and have an hour of Bruce's one-to-one tuition all to yourself, or you can split it between 2 or 3 of you and divide up the hour of flying time between you and your friends. Or if you just want to bring a couple of people to sit in the observers seats (directly behind the pilots seats), you can do that, too.
All participants will be given a personally signed commemorative Bruce Air Flight 666 certificate as a souvenir of their experience.
The Bruce Air Flight 666 Experience costs £666 + VAT (at 20%) for one hour of simulator time with Bruce.
For more information, visit www.bruceair.co.uk.
In a press release that was issued in November 2011, Bruce commented, "I can't wait to sit in the simulator with fans and share the buzz of what it is really like to fly a modern passenger jet such as Flight 666 and all the challenges that entails."
Bruce Dickinson has a huge passion for flying — so much so that he is a commercial airline captain and a talented originator — devising an ingenious method of converting a Boeing 757 to allow him, the band, their crew and tons of equipment to tour three times around the world in their customised plane "Ed Force One", call sign "Flight 666".
Not content with just entertaining fans on the ground, Bruce then instigated a series of highly acclaimed "Bruce Air Flight 666" excursions, filling the plane with fans and personally flying them to and from various IRON MAIDEN concerts around Europe.
