While Mr Pink's backwards-looking glasses are probably putting something of a rose-pink tinge on his abilities and missed prospects in the RAF, there is no need for the kind of aggressive, antagonistic rudeness displayed by Frank Drebin.
People will always attempt to put the best gloss they can on missed opportunities and past regrets; it's human nature. Who knows, at this distance, what Mr Pink might have achieved had he been accepted by the RAF? However, the RAF decided to decline the advantage of his talents, and so we'll never know. His point that one never knows what the future holds, in or out of the RAF, is a perfectly reasonable one.
Equally, Frank's point that it is somewhat disengenuous to suggest that you would have been a Harrier pilot if it hadn't been for the RAF's short-sightedness at not selecting you is quite correct, if phrased more than a little intemperately. After all, we might all have been astronauts if life hadn't been unkind to us at just the moment when that particular prospect may have opened up...
Mr Pink, you are not, nor have you ever been, an RAF pilot. Do not make the mistake of thinking that those who made it to Harriers in other years are or were less good pilots than you might have been. You have no real idea what the minimum standards are now or were at any time in the past, and it is misleading (and somewhat insulting) to suggest that any individual who got into the RAF at a time when they were in greater need of pilots is or was of a lower standard than you were. Nor were you ever subject to the intensity of fast-jet training, with its high drop-out rate - which is not necessarily related to ability as assessed at UAS.
That said, there was no need for Frank's attitude, and I think we'd all be grateful if a little more tolerance and politeness was shown. After all, I don't have to let you in here at all...
Scroggs