Going to pot... Aviation enthusiasts today would immediately diagnose as insane anyone wanting to melt down a Spitfire- let alone destroy hundreds of them. But thats exactly what happened at the end of the Second World War... when dozens of skyworthy Spitfires, Kittyhawks and Mustangs were gathered home from the hard-fought battlefields of the Pacific and reduced to scrap. To be stripped down and junked might seem a betrayal of all that these machines and their pilots fought for. Yet, surely theirs was a destiny fulfilled? Many of these Merlin-powered machines were conjured literally from pots and pans by a rapidly militarising world, so perhaps its appropriate that these "Kitchen Knights" would return from whence they came, until heaven forbid they were needed again in some new conflict. The airfield at Oakey, here in Queensland, Australia was once such a scrapyard. But the local farmers were improvisors, like farmers everywhere, and in fine "swords into ploughshares" tradition regularly jumped the fence to see that nothing useful was wasted (thankfully the neighbors were spared the debut of the Merlin-powered tractor!!!). Indeed the locals collected so many bits and pieces that the area has since become a mecca for aircraft restorers. Rumours persist that buried somewhere nearby, entire Spitfires lie entombed, hidden at the war's end by their disgruntled pilots. This picture is dedicated to the legend of those sleeping machines... the sky's Once and Future Kings... Picture credits: Spitfire model from Amazing3D Graphics. The model's sea-grey texture set was created by painting over the models original texture file. Rendered in Poser 6 on a yellowed "grass and dirt" ground material. Postwork in Painter 8/Adobe Photoshop CS2 includes extra "grunge" for weathering the paintwork, adding uncut grass under the aircraft and a painted background.