A View from Broadway

Rebuilding Blondie

Reconstruction of the nearly destroyed Blondie 21 Proto Speed plane is underway. All photos by Ken Burdick.

Yes folks, it’s true.

I was sick after the Blondie 21 Proto virtually exploded at the 2025 Northwest Regional Championships. It took all of June for me to pick up the pieces and decide it could be rebuilt, but the Blondie is slowly coming back to life. The cause was a broken pan that had formed an undetected crack.

After the crash.

There were so many pieces that had blown off in the destruction, it was difficult to formulate a plan. Deep cracks had formed on the wing surface, the outboard wing had shattered, the wing mounted landing gear were torn out, completely destroyed.

The pan and nose piece were also destroyed, so a starting point was a matter of “pick one.” Lucky for me, the hardwood wing spar still extended in a 3” stub on the outboard side of the carnage. I was able to reattach the outboard wing pieces to this.

Once all wing surfaces were in place, and sanded smooth, they would get a coat of lightweight fiberglass cloth and epoxy. One of the interesting things was the myriad of little chunks that blew out of the structure. They were everywhere, but especially along the trailing edges of both wing and stabilizer. I attribute this to brittleness of age as well as the 1/64" plywood inset into all edges of the wing and stab. Having said that, the carnage would have been much worse had those pieces not been there.

One of the labors of this type of restoration is sanding. The finish has to be removed down to the balsa or glass cloth under the paint. *180 grit was used to get the automotive clear coat off and a few more layers of hard earned finish. This all began on July 3, 2025, a little over a month after the pan broke.

It’s now July 18 and I have filled countless dings, chips and all manner of breaks. The sanding is taking most of the time. The .75 oz glass cloth has been applied to the wings using two part polyurethane automotive clearcoat spray to attach it. Of course more sanding and application of a white primer so as to see the flaws — more sanding.

Where are m’pants!

The Blondie uses wing mounted landing gear with attractive wheel pants. It sounds good until you have to make them.

I was fortunate to have a spare set of wire gear for the project, they are complicated. The fairings turned out very well until I put on the glass cloth, this is where my trouble began. There was a leak someplace and the thin epoxy got into the works of the right hand gear. Try as I might, I could not get the wheel to turn again. A little surgery revealed that small amount of the goo had indeed fastened the wheel to the pants. Some work and we’re back on the road again. The very detailed Blondie plans call for 2-oz. glass cloth to be applied. I think I might not do it again unless I have a vacuum set up. The entire wheel project has taken the better part of a month to get it where I think it’s acceptable.

Parts for the rebuilt landing gear with wheel pants.

One of the pants under construction.

Finished!

What’s next?

Rebuilding the front end will be the next step in this trial. The entire nose/crutch and cowling were ripped off in flight. I will need to locate the appropriate Darp pan which I may have done so. Grafting on the front end of the crutch will require carbon fiber. I found some “pre-preg” cf on Amazon, so just waiting for my next trip to the States for the pans that may be the right one.

Stay tuned to the agonizing slow rebuild of Chris Sackett’s original Blondie.

Blondie, built by Chris Sackett and refinished by Ken Burdick, before the Regionals.

— Kenny-b.

A View from Broadway

Rebuilding Blondie

Where are m’pants!

What’s next?

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