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This is from the Australian newspaper BRISBANE COURIER, dated April 16, 1927.



TRANSCRIPT:

NO NEWS.
CAPTAIN..WILKINS MISSING.
NOME (Alaska), April 16, 1927.
Captain Wilkins has been missing since
March 29, on which date he began his
Arctic flight for purposes of exploration
An aviator was sent out by the expedition
at the base to search for the explorer, but
returned without sighting the party. The
last radio word received from Wilkins was
on April 1 when he stated that he had
"engine trouble." Wilkins had predicted
that in the event of his getting lost he
could live on the country for months.

The reason this was in an Australian newspaper was because Captain Wilkins (Sir Hurbert Wilkins) was a noted Australian explorer.

Well, does this echo the Wings of Change's plot or what? The timing even fits--this would have been a year after the serum run.

It is possible, but I think that, while this is a great find, they were just generally playing off of the prevailing history...in that it was known that by 1924 the airplane was really starting to become a threat to the traditional mail carriage methods (i.e. dog sled teams).

Dog sled teams carrying U.S. mail along old routes through the Alaskan wilds wouldn't last much beyond the mid 1930s at most.

I think I may have found a more likely inspiration for Balto 3's plot.

Not too long ago I stumbled upon a movie that really got my attention. It was an American-French drama film called Wings of Courage and one of the things it had on the cover was a bush plain in a snowy mountainous environment.

Here is the cover:


The name and cover alone made it seem very similar to the third Balto movie so I decided to read what it was about. It turns out that the story is based on a true story of a group of French bush plane pilots in South America that start a company to provide air mail service between South America and France in 1930. One of the pilots, Henri Guillaumet crashes in the Andes mountains during a fierce snow storm and has to walk out on his own. Meanwhile, his wife and dog at home are anxiously waiting for him to return home.

Whether Balto 3 gained inspiration from the movie or the real story is anyone's guess but the similarities just seem a little too close for it to be a coincidence. I haven't seen Wings of Courage, but after reading about it, I'm very tempted to watch it.

If you want to read more about Wings of Courage, here's the link for it on Rotten Tomatoes:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wings_of_courage/