Vintage planes a worth a bundle now. But there seems to be not too many around. We sent quite abit to places like Russia and China but what happened to them. Would a trip to those countries to look for one be worthwhile?

Worthwhile? No

You might find the occasional C-46 but the warbirds are all gone.  Most were broken up after the war.  Some survived in Central and South America, but the commie block went to Soviet products fairly quickly.  Helped keep the factories busy.

scraped up for rebuilidng the facotrys and such that was destroyed during the war

I expect that high performance war planes have little practical use except for war. High maintenance, fuel hungary ect. Great toys when uncle sugar is picking up the tab but sad to say in the post war day they were
so much scrap metal .
Got to think about the way they were designed and built (as fast as possible-after all there was a war to be won)
I had a uncle (since passed)who trained and patroled in flying boats (PBM's?) from  may 44 to march 46 .
He was a radioman and was based mosly out of Banana River Naval Air Station.
Key west-Norfolk-Panama-Great Exuma-Gitmo-Galapagos-Puerto Castilla. I have his flight log (747.6 hr)
It just gives the commanders name,plane #, type of flight (training,bombing,navigation,ect) and depature and landing location  with total flight time. There are several notes on engine problemns,several single engine landings, one crash landing (no explanation). The whole log is very understated without any extra info. One exclaimation point--"JATO TAKE-OFF   WHAT A TIME ! " This was a training flight in dec 1945 when regulations had probably lightened up some.
As a kid I remember hearing him saying he was in the navy as a radio opperator,some good natured fooling around as my father (his brother in law ) was also a radio opperator in the army air corp. I never knew he was in flying boats untill I was helping my aunt move (after he passed ) and found his log and photos of his crew poseing below the nose of this giant plane .  What a generation of men !

There are a couple hangers of P51's down in one of the Latin/South American countries but they know all too well what they're worth. We gave they away for nothing to keep the commies out.

You have to figure the Germans didnt get aces with over 200 kills in the air shooting down mosquitoes.  A lot of the planes were destroyed in action.  A lot of other planes just died of neglect because the host country could not provide the expensive maintance.

Indonesia flew several Mustang F-51d fighters well into the early 1960s. Russia destroyed or recycled nearly all the aircraft in their ww2 inventory, including their own. Not a single flying IL-2 or Mig-3 exists today. A surviving static specimen can be found here and there, in an outdoor memorial park or whatnot, but most of them are busy rotting away in the elements.

www.acig.org/artman/uploads/auri_p-51d_f-363.jpg

Indonesia kept a few of their Mustangs and they're stored in a flying museum.