I come into contact with RAF officers for various reasons.
They have very good experience in 2 areas:-
1) Support of expeditionary forces
2) Ground interdiction
The other thing is that they have been in wars conducted far away
from the UK, and these are recent wars against reasonably capable
enemies (fighters and SAMs). In 1982, they were up against the
Argentinians. Mirages and Skyhawks against Harriers. Altho' the
Harrier was a more modern aircraft, its capabilities were about the
same, except for the V/STOL part. Their dog fighting skills were
pretty good. In Bosnia, in the 90s, they flew support missions in
the face of deadly advanced Russian SAM systems.
I need not go into the missions conducted in Gulf Wars 1 and
2.
Safety is also very high in the RAF and the conduct of "safe air"
missions is a good indicator of how disciplined an air force is
supposed to be. By "safe air" it means not only accident prevention
on ground and in the air, but also prevention of "friendly forces"
hits. They are a bit more disciplined than the USAF in this
regard.
