3. We have an airforce whose most vocal members shout out that if it's not American it must be rubbish.
I think perhaps, in a moment of understandable emotion, tbis comment over-simplifies things a little.
As a 'supporter' (Stacker) rather than an 'operator' of the various bits of kit the RAF used over the years the issue that makes the British kit 'rubbish' is the struggle to get aftersales support from the manufactuer in order to effectively field and operate the kit.
Simple market forces mean that buying kit that has had a large production run and is being used by a large amount of customers will result in simplier aftersales support than buying a small amount of kit from a supply of which you are the only customer.
The British kit may be technically superior to the US kit but if the Brit kit is sat unusable or of limited use because the manufactuer of a part went out of business due to limited follow-up business then its only so much junk.
At least thats how I understand things from beneath my pile of blankets.