Stanwell (your wish is my command !),
The Griffon engine had the power to rotate a Spit round its own prop at low airspeed. On take-off, you fed the power in very slowly. With wheels on the ground it did its best by not merely swinging right (if you let it), but by a most peculiar "right close march" motion. It literally "hopped" to the right across the runway while the nose remained pointing straight down it.
How you managed on a formation take-off I don't know. If you slapped the power on in the air, it would perform a sort of three-dimensional version of a knight's move in chess (leapt 50ft up and 50ft out to the side at the same time).
Of course, all this is on the basis of less than 20 hrs on the things. Our more experienced
colleagues took all this in their stride and were quite happy with them.
Still prefer the Merlins, though.
Danny.