aircraft. With only 17 aircraft in inventory, the RB-1 was not feasible to maintain on the active list, and it was retired from U.S. Navy service in early 1945. The extant RB-1s were then transferred to the War Assets Administration (WAA) to be sold as war surplus. In 1945, the WAA sold 12 Conestogas to the National Skyway Freight Corp for $28,642 each (equivalent to $ in dollars) at a time when new C-47s were selling for approximately $100,000 each (equivalent to $ million in dollars). The new company, founded by members of the AVG Flying Tigers immediately sold four RB-1 aircraft to other buyers, which paid for the entire WAA contract. The seven remaining National Skyways aircraft were used to transport a variety of cargo, shipping fruit and furniture from its base in Long Beach, California. Pilots reported that the Budd transports were temperamental; in particular, exhaust stacks kept falling off and causing engine fires. There were three more crashes of Conestogas while in service with National Skyway Freight, one each in Virginia, New Mexico, and Michigan. The crash in Virginia was a belly landing at a country club brought on by fuel exhaustion following weather-related problems. The Albuquerque, New Mexico crash was due to a downdraft during a snow storm, from Albuquerque.<Widow of Lawrence Molloy Feemster, Ruth Mae (Feemster) Hill & preserved newspaper clippings> Pilot and copilot were killed when they were thrown through the windshield and the aircraft skidded over them; the flight engineer survived. In 1947, the U.S. Army (and later the U.S. Air Force) gave National Skyway Freight a large contract for trans-Pacific freight, for which it leased military aircraft. The company changed its name to Flying Tiger and replaced the RB-1s with C-47s for its U.S. freight routes; the RB-1s were sold off to other buyers. One of these aircraft, a prototype RB-1, "NC45354" was sold to the Tucker Motor Company to transport its demonstration 1948 Tucker Sedan to auto shows around the U.S.; it was reportedly later abandoned at an airfield in Oakland, California after repeated mechanical troubles. Brazil The V.A.S.D. (Viação Aérea Santos Dumont) was born on January 18, 1944. He started with the purchase of two Catalinas and a Budd Conestoga, both former Rubber development Corporation. Budd RB.1 Conestoga had the PP-SDC "Tio Sam" enrollment. It was damaged in an emergency landing at Campo dos Afonsos on 04.01.1947, landing with one