The Griffon might have been the answer to Hawker’s powerplant prayers. Despite plans for an installation on the Typhoon and Tempest, only briefly did it take flight in one of these illustrious airframes
In ancient myth, the Griffon was a creature combining the head and wings of a bird of prey with the body of a lion. It seems apt, therefore, that the Rolls-Royce engine of that name came close to providing the ‘head’ for an aircraft designed for quite a different engine: Napier’s potent but troublesome H24-layout Sabre.
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