In article ,
"Marco Leon" wrote:

At least in the first one they
were able to borrow a real F-16 from the Air Force. Apparently someone in
the USAF actually saw how bad the original was because there was no
government hardware anywhere in the scenes that I saw.

USAF would allow use of any of its equipment.
The F16 was Israeli Air Force.
The production company built plywood F16 mockups powered by VW engines
for the ground shots.