Model Fun #5

In a storm-lashed river valley, a young man named Will teams up with a doctor to deliver life-saving serum across a flooded river after the bridge has been washed out. With the help of a model airplane—first tried with an arrow, then a rubber-powered plane, and finally a gas-powered one—Will attempts to cross the treacherous river in the dark, relying on a flashlight to guide the way. The story builds as the small plane flies through the storm, its fate uncertain, leaving those on the other side to search for its signal in the night.

A young model pilot and his father inspect a crashed radio-controlled aircraft, marveling at how far aviation testing has come since the days when real pilots risked their lives to test new designs. Though the model is damaged, they’re confident it can still complete its tests—proof of how far safer, smarter methods have advanced flight technology.

Pancho Parrot races to warn his friend Pepito, a balsa wood borer, after learning that the forests of Ecuador are being cut down. As he searches through the sawmill and shipping sheds, Pancho follows clues that lead him across the ocean to America, where he tracks the balsa wood to a sawmill, desperately searching for Pepito among the logs.