Swift Engineering Inc. is an American spacecraft engineering firm that builds

autonomous systems An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. The first autonomous robots environment were known as Elmer and Elsie, which were constructed in the late 1940s by W. Grey Walter. They were the first robots in history ...

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, ...

, ground vehicles,

robotic Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrate ...

s, and composite parts. Swift used to produce racing cars for open-wheel racing series, including

Formula Ford Formula Ford, also known as F1600 and Formula F, is an entry-level class of single seater, open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held across the world form an important step for many prospective Formula One drivers. Formula For ...

Formula Atlantic Formula Atlantic is a specification of open-wheel racing car developed in the 1970s. It was used in professional racing through the IMSA Atlantic Championship until 2009 and is currently primarily used in amateur racing through Sports Car Club o ...

, the

Champ Car World Series Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ( ...

and

Formula Nippon The Japanese Super Formula Championship is a formula racing series. It is considered as being the top level of single-seater racing in Japan and regional motorsports in Asia. The series is sanctioned by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) a ...

, having designed and fabricated over 500 race cars.

History

Swift Engineering was founded as SWIFT CARS in 1983 by David Bruns, Alex Cross, R. K. Smith, and Paul White. Their first car, the DB-1, was a

which won the SCCA National Championship in its debut race. The company later built cars for Sports 2000, Formula Ford 2000,

and

CART A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people. It is different from the flatbed ...

. Swift chassis won the Atlantic Championship from 1989 to 1992 and

British Formula Renault British Formula Renault Championship referred to one of two Formula Renault championships that were held in the United Kingdom. The main series was Renault Sport, Renault Sport UK's Formula Renault Eurocup, Formula Renault 2.0 UK championship which ...

in 1990. In 1991, Swift was purchased by

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

executive and former Indycar racing driver Hiro Matsushita, grandson of

founder Konosuke Matsushita, who renamed the firm Swift Engineering. Under his direction, Swift moved up to the

CART World Series ''CART World Series'' is a racing video game for the PlayStation console, developed by Sony Interactive Studios America and published by Sony Computer Entertainment and released in October 1997. ''CART World Series'' is based on the Championship ...

for 1997, with two cars entered by

Newman/Haas Racing Newman/Haas Racing was an auto racing team that competed in the CART and the IndyCar Series from 1983 to 2011. The team operations were based in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Newman/Haas Racing was formed as a partnership between actor, automotive enth ...

and driven by

Michael Andretti Michael Mario Andretti (born October 5, 1962) is an American semi-retired auto racing driver and current team owner. Statistically one of the most successful drivers in the history of American open-wheel car racing, Andretti won the 1991 CART PP ...

and

Christian Fittipaldi Christian Fittipaldi (born 18 January 1971) is a Brazilian former racing driver who has competed in various forms of motorsport including Formula One, Champ Car, and NASCAR. He was a highly rated young racing driver in the early 1990s, and parti ...

. In CART, Swifts got four wins and 24 podiums from 182 race entries.

Tarso Marques Tarso Anibal Santanna Marques (born 19 January 1976) is a Brazilian racing driver who competes part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 79 Ford Mustang for Team Stange Racing in both series. He previously ...

was the last driver to race a Swift chassis in CART in the 2000 season. From 2000 Swift Engineering started to provide vertically integrated, multi-disciplined, product development services including design, development, engineering, testing, and rapid manufacturing of prototypes, demonstrators, and pre-production articles. In 2018, Swift Engineering started its overseas office forming, a joint venture with Kobe Institute of Computing called Swift-Xi Inc in

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

, Japan providing data, logistics, and operations of autonomous and robotic technologies.

Racing cars

The first Swift racecar was the DB-1 Formula Ford. The car won its debus race, the 1983 SCCA Runoffs at Road Atlanta. The DB-1 was the third car designed by Bruns and was considered to be a design simplification of Burns's previous design, the Automotive Development ADF. The car was considered a landmark design that rendered prior Formula Ford models obsolete. The DB-1 had the lowest aerodynamic drag of any Formula Ford at the time of its release. Over 100 DB-1s were sold in the 18 months following the car's release. The car won 10 Formula Ford championships over the next 13 years. The closely related DB6 won an additional six championships with the last one in 2008. The success of the car was considered one of the factors that resulted in a slow decline of Formula Ford in the US after 1984. File:Andre Lotterer 2010 Formula Nippon Motegi (May) FP2.jpg,

car in 2010 File:AtlanticCars2007.jpg,

Atlantic Championship The Atlantic Championship is a formula race car series with races throughout North America. It has been called Champ Car Atlantics (after its former name), Toyota Atlantics (due to the series' previous history of using Toyota-powered engines) ...

cars racing in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

, TX 2007 File:Robert Wickens Champ Car Atlantic 2007 Houston.jpg,

Robert Wickens Robert Tyler Wickens (born March 13, 1989) is a Canadian racing driver from Guelph, Ontario, driving in the Michelin Pilot Challenge for Bryan Herta Autosport. In 2009 he finished in second place in the FIA Formula Two Championship, and in 2010 ...

driving at the Grand Prix of Houston Champ Car Atlantic support race in 2007 File:Loic Duval 2010 Formula Nippon Motegi (May) FP2.jpg,

Loïc Duval Loïc Duval (; born 12 June 1982) is a French professional racing driver racing for Audi Sport as a factory driver in DTM and driving for Dragon Racing in Formula E. He won the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans with Allan McNish and Tom Kristensen dri ...

(Docomo Team Dandelion Racing) during the Saturday free practice session in 2010 In 1998, Swift became the sole supplier for the new spec regulation Toyota

. In 2006, the Atlantic race series became a part of the Champ Car (formerly CART) organization and was renamed the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Powered by

Mazda , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan. In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one m ...

. Swift built an entirely new car for the series, using 016.a as a chassis code. Swift became the sole supplier of chassis for the Japanese

championship in 2009 with the 017.n chassis (also known as the FN09). An updated model called SF13 was used in 2013. A derivative of the 017.n, the 020.I, was proposed by the company in response to

Indy Lights Indy NXT, previously Indy Lights, is an American developmental automobile racing series sanctioned by IndyCar, currently known as Firestone Indy NXT Series for sponsorship reasons. Indy Lights is the highest step on the Road to Indy, a program ...

' requirement for a new chassis for the 2014 season.

Aviation

Beginning in 1997, Swift diversified into aerospace/aviation markets, working with major companies including

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military techn ...

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

, Sikorsky, and others. Swift has also worked for govermential agencies such as

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Killer Bee

Swift Engineering designed, built, and delivered the runway-independent Killer Bee blended wing

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

and its mobile launch/retrieval system in 2002.

bought the Killer Bee UAV product line from Swift Engineering, and renamed it as the

Northrop Grumman Bat The Northrop Grumman Bat is a medium-altitude unmanned air vehicle originally developed for use by the United States Armed Forces. Designed primarily as an intelligence " ISR" gathering tool, the Bat features payload capacity that is unmatched ...

in April 2009. It has been used primarily as an ISR gathering tool, and features a 10-ft wingspan with 30-lb payload capacity.

Eclipse 400

In 2007 Swift Engineering produced the prototype

Eclipse 400 The Eclipse 400 (formerly Eclipse Concept Jet, or ECJ) is a single-engine very light jet that was designed by Eclipse Aviation of Albuquerque, New Mexico. A development of the Eclipse 500, the Eclipse 400 was cancelled when the company went ...

single-engine jet aircraft under contract to

Eclipse Aviation The Eclipse Aviation Corporation was the Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States-based manufacturer of the Eclipse 500 very light jet (VLJ), and also at one time proposed developing the Eclipse 400 single-engined jet. The company was founded ...

. The aircraft was built in secrecy at

Wallops Flight Facility Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and approximately north-northeast of Norfolk. The facility is operated by the Goddard ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

and first flown on 2 July 2007. Swift supplies high-strength, low-weight composite parts and assemblies to a number of aerospace industry customers. Engineering consultancy and the design and production of tooling for composite parts are further aspects of the business.

Sikorsky–Boeing SB-1 Defiant

Swift Engineering Inc. joined the Sikorsky-Boeing team in 2015 to support the development of the

Sikorsky–Boeing SB-1 Defiant The Sikorsky–Boeing SB-1 Defiant (stylized as "SB>1"; company designation S-100) is the Sikorsky Aircraft and Boeing entry for the United States Army's Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program to replace the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. It is a ...

Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR TD), with design and manufacturing of a significant portion of the airframe structure.

Swift020/021

In 2014 Swift started developing the Swift020 fully electric, fully autonomous VTOL UAS. This aircraft is runway independent and transitions to horizontal flight through its autopilot software. the first UAS featuring X-blade technology, made its first fully autonomous flight demonstration in the city of

Kobe, Japan Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, which ...

on July 21, 2018. It takes off and lands like a

quadrotor A quadcopter or quadrotor is a type of helicopter with four rotors. Although quadrotor helicopters and convertiplanes have long been flown experimentally, the configuration remained a curiosity until the arrival of the modern UAV or drone. T ...

but transitions to efficient fixed-wing forward flight without additional launch and recovery equipment, vastly reducing operational time and cost. It has a 4-meter wingspan, 2–3 hours of endurance, and a 1.5-kg payload.

Swift Ultra Long Endurance (SULE)

In 2018 Swift proposed to design, fabricate, and fly a Swift Ultra Long Endurance (SULE) 30-day mission

high-altitude long endurance Atmospheric satellite (United States usage, abbreviated atmosat) or pseudo-satellite (British usage) is a marketing term for an aircraft that operates in the atmosphere at high altitudes for extended periods of time, in order to provide servic ...

(HALE) UAS with flight tests including 24-hrs, 48-hrs, and 7-days during the Phase 2 timeline for

. All operations, ground control, safety, reviews, and payload will be included in these test flights and within the proposed 2-year timeframe. Swift HALE completed its first test flight from Spaceport America in

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

in 2020.

Naval technology

XLUUV submarine

In 2017 Swift Engineering designed, fabricated, and delivered QTY 10, 10-ft Iridium NEXT payload adapter cylinders, structures for a 50 ft. XLUUV unmanned submarine.

Recognitions

Swift Engineering has been nominated and recognized multiple times in the past few years for its program management techniques and its quality management techniques due to the extensive programs Swift has been involved with. *2012: Swift Engineering received the JEC Americas Innovation Award for its out of autoclave process *2012:

Small Business Supplier of the Year, awarded from 1500 suppliers *2013: Swift Engineering has been chosen as a "Best in Class" A&D Company to Watch by

Aviation Week ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', often abbreviated ''Aviation Week'' or ''AW&ST'', is the flagship magazine of the Aviation Week Network. The weekly magazine is available in print and online, reporting on the aerospace, defense and aviatio ...

*2015:

Supplier of the Year nomination in 2015 *2017: Swift Engineering was awarded "Best Intrapreneurship" by OCTANe,

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

's technology, and life sciences accelerator organization, during the annual High Tech Innovations event held Oct. 13, 2017, in Newport Beach, CA. *2018: Swift proposed to design, fabricate, and fly a Swift Ultra Long Endurance (SULE) 30-day mission HALE UAS with flight tests including 24-hrs, 48-hrs, and 7-days during the Phase 2 timeline for

Nasa The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

. All operations, ground control, safety, reviews, and payload will be included in these test flights and within the proposed 2-year timeframe. *2019: Swift Engineering has been selected out of 25 companies around the world to install a UAS academy for the

Ministry of National Security (Bahamas) Ministry of National Security (MNS) is the primary law enforcement and national defense agency within the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. MNS has responsibility for customs and immigration, defense and the national police force. Agencies located w ...

, to deploy a suite of drones to support the country's command, control, communication, and ISR efforts. *2019: Swift is delivering a pair of low-cost (90% reduction), low weight (50% reduction)

telepresence Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance or effect of being present via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location. Telepresence requires that the user ...

arm replacements to

for their Valkyrie humanoid robotic assembly. *2019: Swift Engineering has been selected for the design and construction of

Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft The Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program was initiated by the United States Army in 2018 to develop a successor to the Bell OH-58 Kiowa scout helicopter as part of the Future Vertical Lift program. The OH-58 was retired in 2014; ...

(FARA) Airframe for Sikorsky.

References

External links

Swift Engineering web site

JUSTIA

Road and Track road test of the Swift DB-1 Formula Ford

NASA

The Bridge

Forbes Japan
* * {{Authority control Formula Atlantic Sports car manufacturers Aircraft manufacturers of the United States Aerospace companies American racecar constructors Champ Car Aerospace companies of the United States Engineering companies of the United States Unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturers Defense companies of the United States American companies established in 1983