Bob Swanson's love of aviation began as a boy in Oklahoma City, where his Dad, a friend of Tom Braniff and one of his airline's very first passengers, got him a ride in a Lambert Monocoupe at the age often. A few years later Bob was taking the stick himself in an Aeronca C3 in which he first soloed in Mission, Texas.

As a U.S. Navy cadet at Pensacola he soloed in the "Yellow Peril" Stearman N2S in August 1943. He earned his Navy wings in April 1944, and went on to instruct in F4F Wildcats at Jacksonville, before being assigned to F6F Hellcat Squadron VBF-13 of Fighting Thirteen aboard the USS Saratoga (CV-3). His choice to stick with the trusty Grumman Hellcat instead of opting for the sexier Corsair most likely caused him to miss being among the Corsair pilots who were aboard the USS Franklin during the deadly bombing attack of the Spring of 1945.

LTJG Robert K. Swanson, after 25 months of Navy flying in over a dozen type aircraft, flying off six different aircraft carriers, with almost a thousand hours of flying, never so much as scratched paint on a single plane. Taking the stick again for the first time in a long while, after once around the patch in a Citabria, the instructor, Commander Lou Fields, exclaimed after Bob greased his first three-pointer in almost forty years in a taildragger, "Can't beat that Navy training—you're good to go."

After WW II as an electrical engineer he was involved in numerous aviation related projects, while working for Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The projects included research for NASA and the FAA. He was involved in several projects involving the Space Shuttle.