I had many flights in them during the V Force dispersal exercises. Noisy old beasts and from memory you couldn't smoke as the fuel transfer gear was in the cabin floor.
While on 205 Sqn at Changi I flew to Sangley Point near Manilla in a FEAF VIP Hastings which had been modified so that you could have a fag. I remember sitting at the back reading Neville Shute's 'No Highway' and trying not to think of the one that crashed near Abingdon and killed all those Paras. That's why I needed a smoke
Last year I helped return a DC4 to the skies and whilst doing so wondered why the RAF had not purchased some of the many that must have been surplus at the end of the war. On the surface it looked to be a better aircraft than the Hastings. Propping up British Industry again.?