I have not heard much more on the crated & buried Spitfires in Burma, I hope it is not bullyang and they exist but in what state I gather is the millions of $ question knowing how they store things the metal should be good but the crates made of wood buried in what could now perhaps be a swamp they may be beyond anything............
For locations to visit collections of aircraft: Pima Air Museum (east of Tucson, Az.), March ARB, John Wayne Airport, Chino Airport, San Diego Aviation Museum. Of these mentioned the Pima and Chino locations were selected to receive aircraft for storage and salvage at the end of WWII. Pima became a museum site by simply dragging aircraft from the nearby storage facility. Chino became a restoration facility, and has an annual airshow of military aircraft.
I just happen to be in Las Vegas next week. A small detour could be in order ....
I went for a ride out of Owen Field at Columbia, SC in the Collings Foundation B-17 several years ago. It was a fantastic cool, clear and crisp morning. It was a 45 minute flight out to Bomb Island in Lake Murray and back where the Doolittle Raidlers trained for a short time before moving to Eglin Field in Florida. Worth every penny!!
My bucket list contains a flight in a Spitfire in England when we tour there my father(WWII LAC Engine Fitter) always praised the Merlin as a beautiful Aero Engine and the plane it was mounted in and after reading a few books like Geoffrey Quill's along with some others on Caldwell, Bader, Townsend, Hoppy Hopwood (another legless WWII pilot), Finnucane, Johnny Johnson, Roland Tuck, Al'Deere etc I agree.
In fact when Herr Goering asked Adolf Galland what he wanted to defeat the Brittish the famous quote came back "A squadron of Spitfires Herr Reichsmarschall."
The Spitfire held the fort across all of Britains shores in those dark early days along with the Hurri well before the P-51, The Jug and P-38 came along to tip the balance of power in the air.
here's another privately owned one in the UK that will taxi up to take-off speed but (I seem to think....) that for some reason the CAA won't give it a licence to fly. Just think of 3 flying together................