The ideal location for a gliding club - hill top? or bottom!
Now in the good old days, before the war....they didn't know about thermals.
Hill lift was understood, so they started flying from Dunstable Downs, casting their flying machines into the breeze much like the hang gliders today.
A sturdy horse was employed to drag the glider back to the top of the hill. Until Dobbin got a fright one day when a clever dick pilot flew low overhead, he panicked and galloped away dragging the Dagling to destruction, or so the story goes....
Then they tried leaping off the Long Mynd. Or employing the manpower to bungee the primary into the empyrium - seven bods minimum, 3 on each end of the rubber band, one to release the tail when it got tight enough.
And of course the Bishop, that fabled hill north of Edinburgh -
Trouble with locating your club at the TOP of the hill is it tends to get lost in cloud. Which is quite exciting when you want to find your way home.
They compromised at Talgarth. Half way up the hill, nestled against the mountain. If the hill doesn't work or becomes covered in orographic, the way home is down, not up. And if you really screw up, there are fields in the valley. Dunstable relocated at the bottom of the Downs.
But Sutton Bank stayed at the top.....