in April, 1996 the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation acquired a Stratofreighter and returned it back to flying condition in Nov 2017

In order to maintain the C-97 as an airworthy airframe into the future, the BAHF needed to establish a significant spare parts cache, and they learned of C-97’s in storage at  Greybull, Wyoming , the last aircraft from the legendary Hawkins & Powers firebomber fleet.

They came to an agreement with B&G Industries in Dec 2021 which will allow them to acquire several of these long-dormant C-97s for essential spare parts. This will include a dozen serviceable Pratt & Whitney R-4360-59B Power Packs with records, propellers, brake assemblies and myriad spare parts.

Each engine “Power Pack” weighs 6,500lbs and they need to coordinate bringing tools and specialized equipment out to Wyoming, as the tooling and equipment that H&P had was sold in a liquidation auction in 2006. 

A heavy crane will need to be brought in, specialized engine stands on which to mount the Power Packs to facilitate safe transport must be fabricated. 

Then a crane to install the engine on the C-97 once the trip is complete. A maintenance crew already removed the damaged #2 engine in anticipation its replacement.

In 2019, the one flying C-97 had an engine failure at the Reading Regional Airport, in Pennsylvania, and needs at least one engine to get back to flying. 

As early as 1934 the site for the Reading Municipal Airport was selected. The land in Bern Township was acquired by purchases made by the City and County and work was started on the 180-acre tract in August 1936 as a WPC project

Originally opening in 1939,  Reading Regional was taken over by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1942, which also bought a large quantity of land surrounding the airfield and repurposed the facility into a large military base for use in the war effort. There were 276 various type buildings and structures constructed which included 5- hangars, machine shop, warehouses, operational buildings, barracks and miscellaneous buildings.

Reading Army Airfield opened on June 1, 1943, with the 309th Base Headquarters and Air Base Squadron as its host unit.

It had training facilities for the Navy and the Army Air Corps, and it was a large maintenance facility. In late 1944, there were approximately 300 B-24s that were coming back from Europe and being decommissioned and worked on.  There was a prisoner of war camp on the Airport. Many of those prisoners ended up staying after the war in the Berks County area, but during the war, itself, the prisoners were taken from the Airport encampment to the local orchards and used as labor to pick apples and peaches and then were returned to the Airport, every night.

The Airport now hosts the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum, which collects and actively restores historic war planes and classic airliners, as well as rare civilian and military aircraft, with a large number of historic aircraft on display.  https://businessviewmagazine.com/reading-regional-airport/

https://www.readingairport.org/info/history.html

https://warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-news/berlin-airlift-historical-foundation-acquires-further-c-97s.html