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
R101 (South Africa) the bypassing N1 Highway. At Middelfontein, right before the N1 Modimolle off-ramp, the R101 becomes the road to the west of the N1 (Mookgophong Road, later Modimolle Road) heading North-East. After Kransvlei Farm Resort, the R101 continues by way of a left turn at the t-junction to become the straight road through Mookgophong (Namboomspruit). The distance from Modimolle to Mookgophong is 42 Km. Passing through Mookgophong as Thabo Mbeki Street, it intersects with the R519 at Second Avenue and the R520 at Nelson Mandela Drive. While mostly parallel to the N1, it journeys 51 Km North-East to Mokopane (Potgietersrus). 7