What was the Budd Conestoga made of?

Amid early fears that aluminum would become scarce, the War Department explored using other materials to build aircraft. Budd, creator of the shotweld technique for welding stainless steel and a manufacturer of railcars, car, bus and truck bodies made from that metal, hired aeronautical engineering staff and worked with the U.S. Navy on a new twin-engine transport aircraft built mainly from stainless steel. The Navy accepted the proposal and ordered 200 aircraft, designated RB-1; the Army Air Forces (USAAF) followed with an order for 600, designated C-93.

Its powerplant consisted of two 14-cylinder air-cooled Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92 Twin Wasp radials, each rated at 1,200 hp (890 kW), and the landing gear was tricycle type. The nose formed a distinctive, almost hemispherical section. Cargo could be loaded and unloaded in two ways: through 40 x 60 inch (102 x 152 cm) doors on each side of the fuselage, or via an electrically powered 10 x 8 foot (3.0 x 2.4 m) ramp at the rear of the hold, under the raised tail — a development similar to the one initially fitted on the German Ju 290 as the Trapoklappe ramp in 1939.

In 1945, the WAA sold 12 Conestogas to National Skyway Freight Corp for $28,642 each. In 1947, the U.S. Army — and later the Air Force — awarded National Skyway Freight a large transpacific cargo contract, for which the company leased military aircraft, and it changed its name to Flying Tiger.