else in-house with an assortment of traditional
mills, lathes, welders, and English wheels, not to
mention several master craftsmen.
One cavernous hangar is crammed not only
with airframes awaiting restoration—an ex-Iraqi
Air Force Sea Fury, a second Grumman Goose,
another N3N, a Harvard Mark IV, a Pilatus P-2,
two TG2 gliders—but also a treasure trove of
magnificent...stuff: F-102 brake rotors; a Skyraider
prop; Aeronca L-3 wings; unused TBM wheels
in the original boxes; a Snap Cat R-1340, one
of Pratt & Whitney’s first engines; a self-sealing
Sea Fury fuel bladder; a brand-new Corsair drop
tank with the factory desiccant pack to prevent
moisture buildup. “We found it accidentally in a
car junkyard,” Swager says. “One thing I’ve learned
is that you don’t throw anything away.”
This is especially true of Sea Fury components.
“Thirty years ago, at my dad’s passing, I made a
conscious decision to start buying parts, pieces,
projects,” Dennis says. “So when a fuselage appears,
we go buy it. When a wing appears, we go buy it.
Anything that would pop up, even parts that we
didn’t need. You put a pile in a corner, and then
you put a fuselage there, and then a wing shows up,
and then another wing, and a tail, and pretty soon
you go, ‘Hey, that’s a Sea Fury there in the corner!’
I’ve actually done that on three airplanes already.”
Argonaut is a case in point. The airplane started
as the half of a Sea Fury in the crate that also con-
tained what eventually became 232. Fitted first
with a Wright R-3350, which was later replaced
by a less troublesome Pratt & Whitney R-2800,
Argonaut has been a regular competitor at Reno
since 1994. (For many years at the annual races,
Dennis and Brian alternated as the pilots of
Argonaut and Dreadnought.) And while Argonaut is
not competitive in the Gold class, in the Silver, the
airplane has been as reliable as a Toyota Camry.Dreadnought is significantly quicker, though
not quite strong or slick enough to outrun the
Mustangs. But whereas the Merlin V-12s in the
fastest P-51s are so highly stressed that they have
to be overhauled at the end of every race week, atDREADNOUGHT ’S RADIAL ENGINE HAS
BEEN REBUILT ONLY ONCE, AFTER A
CATASTROPHIC FAILURE IN 1995 FORCED
DENNIS TO MAKE A HEART-STOPPING
DEAD-STICK LANDING LESS THAN A
MINUTE AFTER A ROD BROKE AND THE
4360 STARTED SPITTING FIREBALLS OUT
THE CARBURETOR INLET.The Sanders family
(from left), Dennis;
Shannon, Owen,
and Joel Swager;
andRuthenjoy
theirplaceinthe
Renosunwiththe
2018 championship
trophy.32 AIR & SPACE airspacemag.comBOB DAVIES