The reason the Conestoga was build of stainless steel was that with Japanese domination of the Western Pacific after Pearl Harbour there was a fear that the supply of bauxite (the raw material for aluminium) from Australia might be cut off. Hence the experiment in building an aircraft from another, common metal.
Obviously aluminium did not end up in short supply and the economics of a steel aircraft were hideous.
BTW the name "Conestoga" is the correct name for the covered wagons of the Old West a la "Wagon Train", etc.
Also, Flying Tigers was NOT the original name of the airline. It was National Skyways Freight Corporation. It was the US press that picked up on the fact that the ailrine had been formed by a group of ex Flying Tigers pilots and started referering to the company as Flying Tigers. The name stuck and the company formally adopted it.
In the days of tightly regulated route licences FTL dominated cargo schedules across the Pacific, and Seaboard the Atlantic; the two had been allowed little overlap in their operations.
Although both Seaboard DC-8s and FTL CL-44s were common through Prestwick.