>>10416483That's true even today, just because of different requirements.
F-16's are repainted on average every seven years, and the Pentagon declared that even that is too often. In all kinds of air-forces you'll see planes that have their paint worn down to the zinc-chromate, or even the bare aluminum.
On the other hand in the USN, for Tomcats I know that every panel opened for maintenance had to have its edges repainted for corrosion protection, so they were all patchy as fuck, but no exposed zinc-chromate anywhere. Also they were constantly leaking something, so they wre grimy as fuck. Most leakage you see on an F-16 is usually streaks of some graphite-containing grease coming from the leading edge flaps
