Some people prefer aluminum, some rag and tube. And, apparently, there are masochists that prefer composites.
Or do a "look alike" without worrying about original details.
Perhaps join the Swift Museum and work that angle. They got a copy of the original plans, all the original tooling and own the TC as well. Might be able to work something out and build your own version. Had an old customer who relished the Swift as well and thought along the same lines. But he bought a real one instead.
After Germany surrendered, the Russians were technically neutral (they had never declared war on Japan). A few B-29s were unable to return to their island bases after bombing Japan and ended up in Russian territory where they were interred. At this point, I am relating a story from a guy I used to work for that grew up in the USSR during the war - his father was in some kind of production management... Stalin ordered copies of one of the B-29s. So they started to disassemble it to reverse engineer. At one point, they found a place where some previous battle damage had been repaired with a patch. It didn't make sense to punch a hole and patch it, but they were told to copy it - so they asked the manager what to do. The manager asked the head of the factory, and up the chain it went until it got to someone who reported directly to Stalin. That person didn't want to appear stupid by asking Stalin, but had to provide an answer. The answer was "Stalin said to copy it". And they did.
FYI: the agreement you sign indicates for non-commercial purposes, non-profit, etc. The other issue is that the Smithsonian may not own the intellectual rights to the drawings so you would need to obtain those permissions as well if applicable.
