On Wednesday 12 May 2021, the Year 3-6 Nelson class went to Omaka Heritage Museum in Blenheim. We were on a school trip and we travelled there in the vans.

When we got there John Orchard our tour guide welcomed us, and we started going through the museum. We stopped at the first plane and John talked about it, we learned that it was called a mono-plane because it only had one wing.

The next plane was a bi-plane because it had two wings. As we moved on there was an exhibit with a plane that had crashed. Soon after that we went into a cave sort of thing where it had a whole lot of badges, war hats, leather coats and all war clothing.

After we were out the other side, we saw another exhibit with fake snow on the bottom which was salt.

Soon after that we saw the Red Baron, it was a tri-plane because it had three wings and we also watched a movie of how he died.

Grids Great Escape was very interesting, he was in his plane and saw that his plane wing was damaged, and he started diving down to the ground. Grid knew that he would hit or crash into the trench and would be killed, so he hopped out onto the wing while still steering the plane and when he got really close to the ground he jumped off.

The next day he was flying a new plane with quite a few bruises.  After that we were finished getting ready for our journey home.

By Alana Petrie

When we went to Omaka we saw Spitfires, Mosquitoes and we even saw a movie of what it would have been like in Stalingrad during the war, and the result of war. The plane I liked most was the Mosquito. I was quite amazed when I heard that they were made of wood and steel. The size of it amazed me!

By Connor Thomas

On Wednesday 12 May 2021, the junior school drove to Blenheim in the vans to the Omaka Aviation Centre, to learn about the planes in World War I and II.

We learnt practically everything about it. John Orchard, the man who toured us, got me really interested in the Britain Bullseyes and German Crosses. The first bit we saw was a spy plane with the man firing a gun at a British plane. It had a cool background picture of a French town that it was spying on!

We also had a challenge sheet with questions about the planes we had to answer, though I did not get to finish it! We also found out some of the planes could still fly.

The famous Red Baron was shot down by Australians, and one accidentally killed the pilot!

After two hours in the World War I exhibit we had lunch and moved on to the World War II exhibit, and saw a Spitfire, a Full Noise (which is my favorite one), and other ones. We watched a really cool video at the end!.

By Maeva Brewerton

Grid is a man out of World War 1. His real name is Keith Logan Caldwell (the men in his camp nicknamed him Grid). Grid was an Ace and had shot down 25 enemy planes. When he was going around looking for his next plane to shoot down, he found out that his wing was damaged. Grid was crash landing and he wanted to survive the war and decided to jump off at the last minute.

If he jumped off at the height he was, he would die and if he went down with the plane he would die also, so he decided he would wait until the plane was about 1 metre above the ground and to jump then.

Grid was very lucky and must have timed it perfectly. When he jumped, he rolled over and got a few bruises but was flying the next day!.

By Mahalah Senior