The heat transfer characteristics off swirling air jet impinging on a heated flat plate have been investigated experimentally. The main object is to enhance the heat transfer rate by increasing turbulence intensity of impinging jet with a specially designed swirl generator. The mean velocity and turbulent intensity profiles of swirling jet were measured using a hot-wire anemomety. The temperature distribution on the heated flat surface was measured with thermocouples. As a result the swirl effect on the local heat transfer rate on the impinging plate is confined mainly in the small nozzle-to-plate spacings such as L/D<3 at the stagnation region. For small nozzle-to-plate spacings, the local heat transfer in the stagnation region is enhanced from the increased turbulence intensity due to swirl motion, compared with the conventional axisymmetric impinging jet without swirl. For example, the local Nusselt number of swirling jet with swirl number Sw=0.75 and Sw=1 is about 9.7-76% higher than that of conventional impinging jet at the radial location of R/D=0.5. With the increase of the nozzle-to-plate distance, the stagnation heat transfer rate is decreased due to the diminishing axial momentum of the swirling jet. However, the swirling impinging jet for all nozzle-to-plate spacings tested in this study does not enhance the average heat transfer rate.