It wasn't the technical difficulty of providing a nosewheel that had the Hastings sitting on its rear end and waddling around like a duck on the ground, for its contemporary in the civil field was the Hermes. Same company, same aircraft almost, but with a nosewheel. LGW had one grounded just outside the old control tower as a rescue trainer. Up front inside it was almost identical to the Hastings, same throttle quadrant, same seats, same layout.
Danny, you are right, it was the Army that demanded it be a tail dragger, but not for the convenience of loading (ask anyone who has manoeuvred a vehicle on the specially required loading ramp and then had to bounce it though the doubled freight door opening so that it was aligned fore and aft with the aircraft, before pushing it up the one in whatever hill, chocking all the way, until tied down in the required position).
The same hill meant lots of height between a/c underside and ground so that a gun and limber etc, together with parachute packs, could be slung from a beam between the main undercarriages. The beam in turn could be released by a WC flush like handle above the co-pilot. As has been pointed out, an engine failure between V1 (ie you could no longer stop on the runway) and safety speed (ie you could now continue in sustained flight) meant that it was left to the pilot to exercise his discretion as to what action was appropriate ("all crew to i/c and say after me...."). Thus, so loaded, the take-off was deadly quiet, for if anyone so much as cleared his throat the co-pilot would immediately pull on the handle sending gun, limber, etc, south at 32'/sec squared. By 200' safety speed should have been attained, even with this ungainly appendage, and Hastie, crew, and encumbrance could continue on their official occasions to the DZ (a hastily revised one no doubt).
Last edited by Chugalug2; 24th May 2017 at 20:35.
Reason: change of DZ