IRON MAIDEN<br />EMPIRE OF THE CLOUDS<br />R101<br /> #ironmaiden #r101 #empireoftheclouds<br />Thank you for watching!<br /><br />From book of souls<br />R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry-appointed team and was effectively in competition with the government-funded but privately designed and built R100. When built, it was the world's largest flying craft[3] at 731 ft (223 m) in length, and it was not surpassed by another hydrogen-filled rigid airship until the Hindenburg flew seven years later.<br /><br />After trial flights and subsequent modifications to increase lifting capacity, which included lengthening the ship by 46 ft (14 m) to add another gasbag,[4] the R101 crashed in France during its maiden overseas voyage on 5 October 1930, killing 48 of the 54 people on board.[5] Among the passengers killed were Lord Thomson, the Air Minister who had initiated the programme, senior government officials, and almost all the dirigible's designers from the Royal Airship Works.<br /><br />The crash of R101 effectively ended British airship development, and was one of the worst airship accidents of the 1930s. The loss of life was more than the 36 killed in the highly public Hindenburg disaster of 1937, though fewer than the 52 killed in the French military Dixmude in 1923, and the 73 killed when the USS Akron crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New Jersey in 1933.<br />"Empire Of The Clouds"<br /><br />To ride the storm, to an empire of the clouds<br />To ride the storm, they climbed aboard their silver ghost<br />To ride the storm, to a kingdom that will come<br />To ride the storm, and damn the rest, oblivion<br /><br />Royalty and dignitaries, brandy and cigars<br />Grey lady giant of the skies, you hold them in your arms<br />The millionth chance they laughed, to take down his majesty's craft<br />"To India," they say, "magic carpet float away," an October fateful day<br /><br />Mist is in the trees, stone sweats with the dew<br />The morning sunrise, red before the blue<br />Hanging at the mast, waiting for command<br />His majesty's airship, the R101<br /><br />She's the biggest vessel built by man, a giant of the skies<br />For all you unbelievers, the titanic fits inside<br />Drum roll tight, her canvas skin, silvered in the sun<br />Never tested with the fury, with the beating yet to come<br /><br />The fury yet to come…<br /><br />In the gathering gloom, the storm rising in the west<br />The coxswain stared into the plunging weather glass<br />We must go now, we must take our chance with fate<br />We must go now, for a politician he can't be late<br />The airship crew awake for thirty hours at full stretch,<br />But the ship is in their backbone, every sinew, every inch<br /><br />She never flew at full speed, a trial never done<br />Her f<br />...<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-iOhbSv5Wk" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-iOhbSv5Wk</a>