Originally Posted by
brakedwell
I seem to remember the window below the radome was in a door which we used to use for crew changes with the engines running.
I had to zoom in on my photos but there appears to be a circular hatch just below the window. Probably not meant to be opened in flight...
Originally Posted by
India Four Two
plus of course, the obvious difference, that the civil Agosy had doors at both ends. I wonder why the RAF didn't want that option.
I'm guessing here but I think that the RAF would mostly be interested in loading large items that were often able to be driven inside using the rear ramp. The front door only starts to make sense when you are working with small packages such as shown on the photo in your post. For those you have to load and unload using a forklift or platform anyway and the front and rear doors will then enable you to speed up the process. The front door also adds complexity and weight, I guess the trade-off ended up in favour of a fixed nose for the RAF variant. I suspect that the rear ramp and wedge-tail affair was already heavier than the civil rear doors anyway.