Swen Swanson

Swen Swanson
Born	1897/98 Sweden
Died	February 1935
Known for	Aircraft design and manufacture

Swen (Sven) Swanson (1897/98 – February 1935) was a Swedish aircraft designer. He designed aircraft for various aviation companies in the United States and also designed prototype and experimental airplanes. He was known as an innovative aircraft designer. He later worked in partnership with Ole Fahlin. Swanson started designing airplanes while in his teens and by the time he was in college he had designed his third airplane. He founded the Swanson Aircraft Company Inc. and became its chief engineer and president. While working for his own company he designed and built the Swanson W-15 Coupe. He has been described as a "brilliant man of great capabilities and extreme modesty".

Swanson designed and constructed, his first home-built airplane in 1915 when he was 17 years old which was a one-person monoplane which could have been retroactively named the SS1. At age 19 he designed and built his second airplane, a one-person biplane, which could have been retroactively called the SS2. In 1922, while a college student, he designed his third aircraft, the biplane SS3, standing for "Swanson Sport", featuring fuselage made of wood and monocoque design and using a two-cylinder Lawrance engine. He also designed the Kari-Keen 90 Sioux Coupe and the Arrow Sport. These airplanes featured the characteristic Swanson cantilever wing design. The Swanson planes also shared a similar seating configuration; the two-passengers were seated beside each other.

In 1923, Swanson had already graduated from the Aeronautical Engineering School at Vermillion, South Dakota and joined the Lincoln-Standard Airplane Co. previously known as the Nebraska Aircraft Company. He worked there as chief engineer replacing their previous chief engineer, Timm. Swanson in his new role at Lincoln-Standard designed completely new aircraft. In addition, in consultation with Harold K. Phillips, superintendent of maintenance at the company, he designed a new small airplane, the Lincoln Sport, which was a single seater and was based on his earlier design the Swanson Sport.

In 1925 Swanson left Lincoln-Standard and was hired at Arrow Aircraft Company in Havelock, Nebraska. At Arrow he designed a five-passenger plane, the Arrow 5. He also designed the Arrow Sport A2-60 which was built in 1926. In February 1929 the plane was certified as A2-60 and its price was set in the range of $2,900-3,485. The structural integrity of the airplane frame was very good and the fact that the pilot and passenger were seated beside each other, the view from the cockpit and the fact that it had controls for both passengers made the plane popular, as a trainer, among pilots. It also featured the trademark cantilever wings of Swanson's design. By 1931, approximately 100 planes had been built but due to the Great Depression the market for recreational airplanes collapsed and the manufacturer went into receivership in 1940. An Arrow Sport Model A2-60 with serial number 341 is on exhibit at the Smithsonian.

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