Empire of the Clouds story of the R101 airship, which crashed on its maiden voyage in northern France on 5 October 1930. The song was written entirely by the band's lead vocalist, Bruce Dickinson, who initially intended it to be about "World War I fighter airplanes;" Dickinson abandoned the idea after using the same theme for the song "Death or Glory," also from "The Book of Souls". At the time of recording, Dickinson was reading "a big, sort of encyclopedic crash report" of the R101, entitled "To Ride the Storm", which gave him the idea for the song's eventual subject. Dickinson describes it as
The Scent of Crash and Burn by Bowness/Reuter/Wöstheinrich The Scent of Crash and Burn The Scent Of Crash And Burn is an EP by Centrozoon (Markus Reuter and Bernhard Wöstheinrich), featuring No-Man singer Tim Bowness as a guest vocalist; the first in a series of releases by this trio configuration which included both CD and vinyl albums, digital-releases, as well as a DVD. Selected tracks from "The Scent Of Crash And Burn" were reworked (either as remixes or edits) for subsequent releases. For example, the title track was edited by co-producer Lee Fletcher for inclusion on the follow-up album "Never Trust The Way You Are". All