Engines
Now, if you WANT to go down the 'kills are awarded to the pilot and not the aircraft' route, let's just unpack the Battle of Britain, or perhaps not? Any takers?
What's your point fella? We're pretty open about the vital role the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) played in the Battle of Britain. Take a look at this official link to the Battle's Roll of Honour from the RAF's Air Historical Branch:
The Battle of Britain - Home Page
You will clearly see the names of 56x FAA pilots who fought in the Battle - no cover ups and all annotated with FAA in brackets with RN Ranks. Again, IIRC some 4x FAA pilots became aces during the battle out of a total of 188. Of the top 10 aces from the Battle some 5 were Brits, 2 were Kiwis, 1 an Aussy, 1 a Czech and 1 a Pole - no FAA in the top 10 though.
Also take a look at this:
Although the naval pilots were fully integrated operationally into the RAF they wore naval uniform and guarded their Navy identities. Gardner had the flag hoist of Nelson's "England Expects" signal at Trafalgar painted on the side of his Hurricane. In general, they got on very well with Bader - "He wasn't the most diplomatic of people" Gardner said. He had very strong opinions and stuck to these no matter who he was talking to, a senior officer or otherwise. What he said had to go and that was that". In all, 56 Fleet Air Arm pilots flew in the Battle of Britain, 23 of them with the RAF. Nine were killed.
Taken from the Battle of Britain Memorial website - again it paints a positive picture for the FAA (which until May 1939
was the "Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Air Force"!).
Also, 804 and 808 Sqns in the FAA were units that fought independantly of the RAF, just like 1 Sqn in the Falklands.
So your comparison is a good one in my view and whilst we, the RAF, do not detract or claim that FAA pilot's kills in the Battle belong to the RAF, then I believe the RAF have equal claim to our Pilot's kill claims in the Falklands War - and IIRC the RAF pilots were there because the FAA were short of pilots just like the RAF were short in 1940? Sadly, because the FAA pilot numbers were considerably smaller than the RAF in 1940, then historians and authors tend to blob them up as "RAF kills", just as they do for the FAA for 1982.
LJ