HeirWorthiness

The band's papers were drawn up in London in February 1983, in an office near the river, by four British engineers who had just been told they were going to Ohio. The papers name the band, the motto and the intention to record long-form work. They give the place of formation as London. The archive accepts that the papers were signed there.

The band was assembled in Dayton. Rupert Ellesmere, Clemency Harrow and Giles Tewkesbury arrived in April on a two-year secondment to an engine-controls contractor. Ambrose Pell arrived in May with a contract to write three maintenance manuals. They rented a house in Kettering with a dining room large enough for timpani.

They needed a rhythm guitarist. Giles pinned a notice to the corkboard at a general-aviation shop south of the city, where he had gone to look at an instrument panel. Dave Kessler, an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic, answered it the next morning. He had assumed it was an engine job.

The first rehearsal was held on Saturday, June 4, 1983, in a hangar at the same field, by permission, among three single-engine aircraft awaiting annual inspection. The band considers this the date of formation. The sleeve does not.

Rupert's memorandum for the first album ran to two pages and was headed AD 83-24-06, FOR DISCUSSION. It proposed a single concept, sixty minutes or more, about the moment an aircraft is found fit to fly. The band discussed it for one evening. The memorandum was not amended.

Recording began in November 1983 at Stillwater Sound, a studio in a former dairy on the north side of Dayton. The organ parts were recorded in a church in Kettering on weekday evenings, by arrangement with the choir director, who sat in the front pew and turned pages.

At the first press session, in the spring of 1984, the photographer asked Dave to please sound more British. Dave asked how a photograph would show that. The photographer did not know. The question was asked at every press session for the next eight years.

Airworthy was released in June 1984 on CAA Records as a double album. Sixty-eight minutes, six movements. The sleeve gave the band's address as London.

In 1985 the secondment was extended. Rupert took the extension as the subject of the second album: who would lead if he were recalled, and how high the band could go before it could go no higher. The memorandum was headed AD 85-19-11 and specified a recurring inspection.

The album climbs. Sides two and three move from service ceiling to absolute ceiling, the altitude at which the aircraft can climb no further. At that point, about forty minutes in, the music stops and Dave Kessler speaks. He gives the date, the time in service and the words "complied with." It is the only time he speaks on any record.

The band asked him to say it with a British accent. He said it the way he said it at work. That take was used.

The Heir Apparent was released in March 1986. It is the band's shortest record and its only one with twelve-string guitar on it, played by Dave, who had borrowed the instrument from Giles and returned it in better condition.

The third memorandum named three directives instead of one. The first required a recurring inspection. The second was a one-time action. The third was terminating action for the first: once it was complied with, the recurring inspections were no longer required. Rupert considered this the most hopeful idea in aviation and wrote seventy-one minutes about it.

Directive Suite was recorded at Stillwater Sound between May and December 1987 and released in April 1988. It is one continuous suite across four sides. The sleeve asks the listener to turn the record over without comment.

In June 1988 the band went on tour for the first and only time. The Directive Tour opened at a hired hall in Croydon, near the old aerodrome, and played seven engagements in the United States, most of them in towns where aircraft are built, flown or repaired. It closed in Dayton, where it had already played once.

Patrons were asked to remain seated. There was no interval within a directive. At Oshkosh, during the week of the summer fly-in, the audience brought folding chairs. Several brought logbooks.

The secondments ended in 1989. Rupert, Giles and Ambrose went home to England. Clemency stayed in Dayton, where she had taken a post at the wind tunnel and joined the church choir whose organ she had been borrowing.

The band did not break up. It entered what Rupert called a period of deferred maintenance. Memoranda crossed the Atlantic by post. Clemency arranged the replies. Dave kept the equipment, by then stored in his garage, in airworthy condition according to Giles's tags.

The band played twice in these years, both times in Kettering, outside Dayton, both times with three members flying in for the weekend. The archive has located one of the two dates. Giles kept the boarding passes.

In the summer of 1991 Rupert sent the last memorandum. It was headed AD 91-26-03, FINAL ACTION. It was not for discussion.

The fourth album was recorded in Dayton between June 1991 and March 1992, in weekend sessions arranged around three transatlantic flights. The organ was recorded at the church in Kettering. The choir director, now retired, sat in again.

Final Certification was released in September 1992. It closes every item the first three albums left open. The sleeve thanks Dayton by name for the first time.

The last engagement was on Saturday, October 17, 1992, at a high-school auditorium in Kettering. The band played the whole of the fourth album, seated, and then Dave walked to the front of the stage and said, in his own accent, "All systems nominal."

Nobody asked him to sound more British. The band considers this its final certification.