Originally Posted by
Jhieminga
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...
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.
As far as I recall, the bit forward of the crew ladder (to the flight deck) was taken up with a bog and a galley so aft of this if you had a wide load it would get a bit tight hence you'd need the circular hatch near the viewing window for access.