The Swift had been ordered into "super-priority" production, a policy created by Sir Winston Churchill who had become Prime Minister in 1951 at a time of particular tension between NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War; the Korean War had begun in 1950.
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It did break a number of speed records in its time; in Libya, on 26 September 1953, an F.4 (WK198) piloted by Commander Mike Lithgow broke the world absolute speed record, reaching a speed of 737.7 mph (1,187 km/h), though it was broken in turn just eight days later by the Douglas Skyray, a United States Navy (USN) fighter.
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The last variant was the F Mk 7 and was the first Swift variant to be fitted with guided-missiles, being armed with the Fairey Fireflash air-to-air missile and was powered by a new Avon engine.
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Many of the 300 missiles were expended in testing by 6 JSTU at RAF Valley and Woomera, South Australia from 1955–1957 using Meteor NF11 trials aircraft and subsequently by the Supermarine Swift fighters of No. 1 Guided Weapons Development Squadron at RAF Valley.
He became the holder of the World Absolute Air Speed Record in 1953 flying a Supermarine Swift but died when the prototype BAC One-Eleven airliner crashed in 1963.