A View from Broadway
Ken Burdick's John Newton-designed 21
Sport Speed plane. All photos by Ken Burdick
Building the Newton 21ss
By Ken Burdick
Yes folks, it’s true.
After what seemed like years of searching for a John Newton 21 SS kit, I finally found one! YAY!
When I unpacked it, packaged by Randy Weiler, I discovered the seeming hundreds of tiny screws, tubes and gizmos that make up the wing and control system of the Newtron bomb — BOOOO!
Before John Newton passed on, I got to know and love him, his mind worked in a very precise way, and is reflected in all the parts, and that they must go in the exact location. There are however, no instructions. I do have a wing assembled from the late Dick Salter that John Knoppi gave me. Of course it won’t fit the pan on my new kit, but helped me understand how and why things went where they did.
When John Newton decided he could no longer keep up with his F1A models, he retired from international competition and focused on 21 Sport Speed. He molded tops from fiberglass, fabricated an aluminum wing mount, and the hundreds of fasteners all pay tribute to the way his mind worked.
I, however,would like a set of instructions.
I contacted Mike Louie (Hazel) of the Louie-Louie speed team, because he had one of these models at one time. “Where does all the stuff go?” I said. ” Í dunno,” he replied,” just lay it out and figure it from there.” We Louies are very helpful to one another.
I did just that and the model slowly began to make sense. Some filing was needed to get the tank installed, but that’s par for the course in Speed.
The molded fiberglass top was rough as many are and is absorbing a coat of clear and micro balloons while I write this. I Foresee a lot of finish time for this small top.
The controls are built into the aluminum spar that is covered by the aluminum wing on the inboard side. The amount of control is marginal but adequate. Nice line buttons are attached to the bellcrank, and a cable is snaked through the aluminum with a brass tube directing it to the elevator.
The wings look good, shiny aluminum. Usually on something this old, you’ll find a trailing edge split; the kit was no exception. I think he used a 3m film tape but it failed right at the wingtip, so a gob of JB Weld fixed it right up.
One of the more amusing problems was attaching the pushrod cable’s tube to the pan. The holes to bolt the assembly were right on, but tiny — 2-56. The fasteners were cheap slot head machine screws — no screwdriver could hold the slot while lining it up to the minuscule threaded hole.
I final put a drop of CA glue on the screw head and held the blade of a jewelers' screwdriver until it kicked. No problem after that.
The finish was Painters Touch after putting on a base coat of nitrate and microballoons. This I sanded out and gave another light coat of nitrate. Painters Touch primer and a week later sanded that out and shot it with color.
Enjoyed that the hard stuff was already done by John, it made things go faster such as the tiny control horn bent from wire. All in all it was an enjoyable build and I wish John were still here to see it fly.
Close-up.
Kit parts.
Pushrod attachment.
Controls.
Back to Bod Busters page
Back to Speed page
Flying Lines home page
This page
was updated April 2, 2026