Iron Maiden front man Bruce Dickinson is quite the man about the globe, what with his day job in of flying Boeing 757 aeroplanes for Astraeus, a charter airline and his lengthy tours of the world’s arenas bringing Iron Maiden’s awe inspiring metal show to their legions of black clad fans.

Hence the knight in studded leather belts and waistcoats was one of the first pilots to rescue stranded passengers from New York after Hurricane Irene drenched the area, leaving several people dead and transport links cut off, not to mention thousands of homes and businesses flooded if not destroyed.

According to the Press Association, Dickinson is set to ferry 200 passengers from Newark airport in New Jersey to the Icelandic capital for their flagship airline Icelandic Airways. The passengers will be ferried across the Atlantic in style in Ed Force One, a 757 aeroplane which is decked out  in Iron Maiden’s colours and was most recently used as the band’s plane on their world tour which finished up three weeks ago.

It appears that flying will be Dickinson’s main job for the near future, although he has postponed rock n’ roll retirement plans, saying the band plan to “make at least one more album” and have begun planning the follow-up to 2010’s The Final Frontier.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine