Ah, and this summer we all parked our helicopters for an hour or so and watched that C-97 with her very nice little PC-7 bird-dog, water bombing at Kenai, Alaska. Amazing airplane, and very inspiring for all us old airplane freaks who were working there!
Talking of Strat's. I've moved a load now and then with the old Guppy. Sadly her flying days are over now, but she's open to the public at the Tillamook Air Museum.<a href="http://www.tillamookair.com/aircraftlist.html" target="_blank">Tillamook Air Muserum</a>
This web-site has some great historical shots of the conversion to a Mini-Guppy; minor mod to a Strat! <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> )! An old friend of mine was the crew-chief on the airframe and wing mod team and explained the process of building the airplane and creating the drawings as they went (the way real airplanes are built!) Here are the pictures of how it was done!<a href="http://www.allaboutguppys.com/mg/377mgf.htm" target="_blank">Mini Guppy 377</a>
There are a couple of good links from this site with some great shots of the interior and also some shots of her when she hauled SkyCranes (and other things for a living).
Hopefully see this C-97 here somewhere around in the future!
I believe that the Stratocruiser that was in Miami was procured by the Smithsonian.