About the skin:
I think it is too bright. The dark areas on the wings look strange.
You can use pretty dark grey. IL-2 will make it shine anyway.
If you look at my metal skins, they are also too bright. Still I managed to make the look pretty dirty. But as soon as I find the time I will remake them with a better aluminium look. I tested that allready a couple of months ago and got positive feedback on that test.
Most aircraft (P-47's P-51's and P-40's especially) were simply stripped what looked much like this:
But sprayed aluminium doesn't look that different from a distance:
Like I suggested in the other aluminium thread: Try testing with different daytime settings and try to find air to air photos of aircraft (would be nice to have the same aircraft, but any will help in some way) and try to play the settings of that photo (sun position and viewing angle) and see how your skin works compared to that photo.
But I would start with darkening the aluminium a lot. You will see that it will be pretty reflective anyway. From there you can add a little bit of highlights to 'help' reflections a bit. Here is where the comparisation with photo's will help. Some more metal with very different reflections, ww2 photographs from
World War 2 Pictures In Color
