NASA v RAF
airsound and Safeware, I really cannot see the relevance of citing NASA's safety record when considering that of the RAF. In NASA's case a self regulating authority, faced with the horrific deaths of Grissom, White and Chaffee in a ground training accident preparing for the Apollo 1 mission, produced a safety regime whereby all future Apollo missions , including the ill-fated Apollo 13, were conducted without further loss of life. Having attained such an enviable record, thanks to training and financial investment, standards later slipped due to a combination of managerial pressure and financial cutbacks, culminating in the losses of Challenger (Smith, Scobee, McNair, Onizuka, McAuliffe, Jarvis and Resnik) and of Columbia (Brown, Husband, Clark, Chawla, Anderson, McCool and Ramon).
In contrast the RAF, under a self regulating authority, faced with the horrific training accidents of the early jet era produced a Flight Safety regime whereby such accidents were greatly reduced. Having attained such an enviable record, thanks to training and financial investment, standards later slipped, due to a combination of managerial pressure and financial cutbacks, culminating in....oh wait, I think I can see where you are going with this...