Old Grumpy
I'm an 88-year old former Beaufighter pilot. I was trained on clapped-out old Blenheims I and IV at Church Fenton, Yorkshire in 1941 before being allowed to go solo for one hour on a Beaufighter Mk I. (second biggest thrill of my life after my first solo on a Miles Magister).
Then I was sent to 219 Squadron at Tangmere as a "trained" night-fighter pilot.
The C.O. promptly whipped me off to St Athan in S.Wales to build up some hours taking up radar technicians to test the radar installations in Beaufighters coming off the production line. In one month I flew 40 hours and was much more acceptable to the Squadron C.O.
The point of my story is that I loved flying the Beau. It was a wonderful a/c, fully armed with 4 cannons and six machine guns. It certainly did have a swing on take-off, but I quickly got used to it and never had any trouble. I flew Marks I to X; the swing was always to port. Contrary to the other thread I read, it was the early Hercules series that had the swing. The Mark II that I flew at St Athan had Merlin engines and was pretty docile. With the inline contour of the Merlin, the visibility was wonderful. Radials were always a little in the way, being ahead of the cockpit.
By the way, I should add that I did not stay as a night-fighter. After a few weeks, 15 crews recently trained as I was at great expense and secrecy, were collected together and sent to the N.Africa desert & Mediterranean area to be ready for El Alamein offensive
That's it!