[Da Coyote]

To destroy a Spitfire (or a Mustang) should most definitely be considered a major sin. Both were aeronautical engineering works of art.

Horrors.

[wolficatZ]

MK22s are rarer than rare; without looking at the online registry they might be the only ones existing.

I have a documentary that has a few brief clips of Spits being used for ground target practice postwar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire_%28Griffon_powered_variants%29

[Doogle]

...we had an Ammo disposal area there, Salisbury Plain, we used for small arms, grenades, flares and other goodies. They had a weight limit for explosives to be used during demo, which of course I overrode one time....didn't want to bring back comp C...so I put it in with the "shot".... After the dust settled *grins* and we packed up and headed to town, one of my crew asked if we were going to stop in a local pub that was near by.....I answered, of course. When we walked into the place there were only a few people and the barkeep, who knew me from previous "visits", and he was mumblin something like "bloody fawk** yanks,senseless,brainless bunch of wanderin fools, etc etc etc..." I of course acknowledged his greeting with good morning Pat, how are you today? He went on to describe how his bottles and glasses just stopped rattling before we came in and SOMEONE had obviously used too much explosives up on the Plain....while staring at my crew, I said with all sincerity, I'll look into it for ya Patty. He gave me one of those looks that only a drew smile from me.....and said, wat'll have?. I knew there was a underground rock formation that traveled for miles through (under) town and beyond but I was only doing what I was told to do. *smiles*

[count-your-change]

Salisbury steak, plain with a little spitfire? Sounds good to me.

[M1903A1]

Most of the B-29s that exist today survived in a similar manner. Sometime in the 1950s China Lake Naval Weapons Range requested a quantity of surplus B-29s to be used as ground targets...due to a typo of some sort, the base received WAAAAAY more planes than they requested! Desperate to clear the airfield, the base personnel were shoving B-29s in every nook and cranny they could find...and one group of about a dozen was forgotten in a distant corner of the range, until they were discovered sometime in the 1970s or early 80s.