Anent the tricycle undercarriage for some reason we in Britain came later to its use than the US designers. Our wartime aeroplanes used tailwheel undercarriages and logically so did their transport developments. However all the completely new types designed in response to the Brabazon Committee had the tricycle.
At de Havilland there was clearly some nervousness about the steering and a test rig was built with a Comet nose gear on a lorry chassis to investigate its behaviour. It must have been satisfactory as the Comet, Dove and Heron used it.