Under the Bombay Doors

This week I took my class on a field trip to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Mount Hope, Ontario. It was an amazing experience for both myself and the kids.

I was fascinated to get to see the Avro Lancaster Bomber up close and personal.

As you can see in this photograph, the museum actually let the students sit right under the bombay doors to enjoy their lunch.

I never thought we’d actually be able to get this close to the planes. I was expecting them to be roped off, allowing us only slight glances from a distance.

In the top photo, you can see this bomb in front of the aircraft. It’s hard to tell the scale of it from this shot but my students stood beside it and it was taller than a few of them.

This is one of the gun turrets. The Lancaster Bomber has four of these, located at the front, top, bottom, and rear of the aircraft.

My students pointed out the clips of ammunition that they could see inside them. I explained that one man would sit inside this bubble to get a good view of what was around them. He would have to stop fighters and other jets from trying to take them down before they got to wherever they needed to drop their bombs.

As I told my students this story I was reminded of the movie Memphis Belle.

I remember this movie fondly. It’s one of my dad’s favourites. I went over there last night and borrowed his VHS copy of it. I plan on showing it to my class tomorrow. I think it will give them an understanding of what war was really like. It ties into the field trip perfectly and fits in with Remembrance Day next week as well.

The movie is rated for ages 12 + and I haven’t seen it in a while but I am sure it is appropriate for my class. After all, they were very curious about this craft and all of the guns on it.

This museum was absolutely amazing. The hanger deck was filled with airplanes. Mechanics and restoration artists were working on the planes and the students could get up close and personal to them, the staff, and lots of different exhibits.

The tour guides did a great job and there was lot of hands on activities for the students to do. I was really impressed with the entire day and highly recommend this trip to teachers.

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2 responses to “Under the Bombay Doors”

  1. Hi Chase .. sounds like a good project and if they were interested in the whole story – the film should at least open their eyes to War in the 'old days' .. it's much nastier now.

    I hope they enjoy the film .. it will be interesting to have feedback of their thoughts/comments ..

    Thanks – Hilary

  2. Hi Hilary,

    They quite enjoyed the film. A note of caution though for other teachers, it does have swearing in it. I'd prepared my class for this though and they were fine with it.

    We ran out of time on Friday and will finish watching it this week. Maybe I'll have them write a response to it afterward.

    Hope you've had a great weekend.