We had good leadership and morale was high. We didn't have:
A creeping cancer of contractorisation.
Continual pinpricks of financial cutbacks
Investment in People
"I hear what you say"
Idiots like Blair and Hoon sucking Uncle Spam's backside
Plus we had a proper sized RAF with the best training in the world. We even did basic flying training on military jet trainers, everyone flew far more than they did now from 3 times as many aerodromes.
And people didn't spend so much time deployed away supporting Blair's bring-a-bottle wars in some desert $hithole.....