Citabria I think you have been going to too many airshows

Just kidding.
I have talked to guys that maintain these planes and they tell me that it takes hundreds and hundreds of hours to maintain that nice shiny "good metal finish" that we are use to seeing. Not something I expect the ground crews took much time to worry about in wartime.
If you want to see what a real bare aluminum skinned aircraft looks like, go to one of these places that restore aircraft or an air museum that has a plane thats been sitting outside a while.
Its a pale whitish grey color, that actually looks even more like paint than our current model of P-51's and such.
I guess it just goes back to the old arguement of "Do we want to see showroom quality aircraft, or war weary aircraft in our models".
Neither is right or wrong, its just a personal preference

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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure
Carpe Jugulum
"Real Men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires"