Nearly all of them became pots and pans. There were aircraft flewn straight from the assembly line to the storage area, its a pain to think about it.
Some were sold to post-war airlines, or handed over to allied countries as air force help. Those airline/air force planes have mostly been tracked down and are either restored (museum or flying), or scrapped at a later date.
I posted earlier about Paul Mantz buying 475 mixed warbirds for $55.000.
As far as i know, he kept some as movie props and scrapped the rest.
The worst thing is, that some storage places (not just the states) only actually scrapped their planes in the late 60's and early 70's - just as the warbird scene really got started.
Right now I'm looking for info on an Indonesian site (used by USAF), where they only scrapped their planes in the 80's (maybe late 70's).
There are also still at least two B-29 hulks at China lake, but they are pretty messed up. I will try to find China lake pics from the 60's, back then they had loads of B-29's in fair condition.
Even with all the scrapped aircrafts, there are still enough for those who has the money to keep them flying. The world actually don't really need 170.000 more warbirds
I hope that some are still out there, on farms, in forests, in barns. Hidden away and waiting their turn.
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