Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson is a man of many talents. He flies planes, picks up stranded passengers, creates jobs, and is a doctor ferchristsakes! But one thing he isn't: an investor in drone technology.
A drone is an unmanned ariel vehicle controlled, essentially, by remote control. Apparently, some British website named Dorset Eye accused the Iron Maiden frontman of having his hand in drone creation:
“While Dickinson has never been overtly political in his music, one could hazard a reasonably educated guess as to where, on the political spectrum, his sympathies might be located. The singer, from an entrepreneurial middle-class family, has extensive business interests and he recently gave an interview to the Ice Live Business Forum explaining some of his views and talking about his background and various ventures. Given all that, it would hardly drop jaws were the ‘aspirational’ musician revealed to be a Tory. While many might find it disgusting that Dickinson could be a supporter of a party engaged in a deliberate and conscious campaign to impoverish a large segment of his band’s traditionally working-class base, he’s as entitled as anyone else to support whomsoever he wishes.
“On a whole other level of inexcusable cynicism and greed, however, is Dickinson’s recent acceptance from the US military of a contract to manufacture ‘lighter-than-air’ Drones. The contract is believed to be worth anything up to $500,000,000, according to Conference Speakers International.“
That link to the Conference Speakers International website is broken, but thank God for Google Cache, we can still temporarily access the post, which welcomes Dickinson to the team, stating:
Bruce is involved in an air ship venture to manufacture lighter than air drones with a contract to supply the US Army. He is also setting up a separate Training Company (Real World Aviation) to train future Pilots. Bruce left Iron Maiden in 1993 in order to pursue a solo career, his passion for fencing and an interest in becoming a pilot. Bruce re-joined the band in 1999 and has gone on to release four albums; despite this he hasn’t stopped flying Boeing 757s.
So it basically backs up exactly what the news post is saying. Sure, a 500 million dollar contract is nothing to scoff at, but drones aren't exactly getting good press nowadays.
For their part, Iron Maiden released a statement to NME flat out denying the accusations:
“This is a totally inaccurate and malicious piece of writing that seems to have stemmed from an unfortunate mistake in terminology on a South African website that the writer of said blog has since used as a starting point and catalyst to go off on a flight of sheer fantasy.
“Both Bruce Dickinson and Iron Maiden’s manager Rod Smallwood were early investors in, and remain great supporters of, Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), a company that has nothing whatsoever to do with drones, ‘lighter than air’ or otherwise! The future implementation of HAVs is a likely global trend which has massive positive implications in many areas of life and both Bruce and Rod are proud to be involved with a British company at the cutting edge of this technology. As with many far-sighted technological advances, early adopters and financial supporters tend to be military-based as they have the resources to invest and develop, be that everything from space-travel to medicine. Possible military use of HAVs in future could be for heavy-lifting, transportation or high altitude detection of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), or similar, thus saving lives, both military and civilian. Rather than being involved in attacks in the Third World, as this writer has claimed in such an erroneously dramatic and defamatory manner, HAVs are designed to offer much needed assistance to civilians, businesses and governments that would be unavailable otherwise, due to the unique nature of these incredible vehicles.”
Of course, ole Bruce would deny, who wouldn't? But these are some serious allegations. Much like every Iron Maiden fan out there, I hope it's false.
[via MetalSucks]
