[caldrail]

so... okay gents... what would YOU recommend for such a craft? help me figure it out with your suggestions and I 'will' build it just for the heck and fun of it.

On a strictly historical and practical viewpoint, that would never happen. Excess airframes would either be re-assigned, sold, or given to other air forces for political favour, or perhaps merely scrapped for raw material. Designing a refreshed airframe for a different purpose did sometimes occur in WW2, but always within scope of the original designs parameters, for obvious reasons.

However, as a fantasy project, the worlds your oyster. A stretched DC3 perhaps (actually, that more or less did happen with the more powerful and bigger DC4, but there you go). How about a DC3 with twin tail fins and upgraded defenses for all important and difficult long range transport missions (or for that matter, the potential to adapt that to maritime reconnaisance which is an obvious route).

I have this image in my head all of a sudden (without practicality clouding it) of a serious gull winged or delta design for a low speed jet (the fuselage design rather limits performance potential I'm afraid, or was that practicailty creeping in? )