Iron Maiden's Ed Force One in Brisbane

As Iron Maiden, an English heavy metal band formed in 1975, continue their "Book of Souls" world tour it was Brisbane's turn to see this amazing 747.  The jumbo, with the Callsign Atlanta 666, flew in this afternoon from Auckland, New Zealand touching down on runway 01 at 3.21pm. The jumbo is flown by their own lead vocalist Brian Dickinson, and is named Ed Force One after the band’s mascot, Eddie, which has appeared on all of their album covers and even graces the plane’s tail. The aircraft, a B747-428 has the registration TF-AKK with a CN is 32868; is powered by 4 GE CF6-80C2B1F engines. This jumbo started its life with Air France as F-GITH in March 2003, then in Oct 2015 the aircraft changed hands and now belongs to Air Atlantic Icelandic.

The aircraft was painted in "Iron Maiden" special colours in Feb 2016

The tour unfortunately has not gone without incident, as on the 12th Mar 2016 at SCL (Santiago International airport) the aircraft, while being towed, collided with a ground tug, damaging two engines and the undercarriage; but after a few quick repairs it returned to service 22nd Mar 2016.
Iron Maiden performs here in Brisbane on Wednesday night and the group is due to fly out on Thursday morning bound for Sydney.

I am lucky enough to see this beautiful plane again as I will be in Perth Western Australia for the arrival of the Antonov 225 at the same time Ed Force One will be there