I can't speak to the actual degree of weathering on front line fighters, although you can believe I will be asking several 325th pilots I stay in touch with. You have my curiosity up. I will say this... We all are used to seeing better than factory new birds at airshows and museums. Mustangs with deep clearcoat finishes whose paint weight must equal the armour they just removed. That's OK, but when i was at the Gathering of Mustangs a few years ago the plane I most remember was "Twilight Tear", a B model shipped over from Stephen Grey's Fighter Collection. She was crated and then reassembled and flown in just after a major front had passed through. I remember stopping to look at her and it struck me that this had to be the most beaten up P51 at the gathering. Exhaust stains, a goodly bend in the dorsal fin from careless ground handling. Nicks and dings...weathered. To me it was absolutely beautiful. Grey told me they made a deliberate point of keeping the bird like that as a kind of tribute. Right on.
