Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Royal Air Force was founded on the 1st of April 1918, formed by merging the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. The merger was recommended in a report issued on the 17th of August 1917 by South African statesman Jan Smuts, informed by Britain's experience of German air attacks during the First World War. Parliament passed the enabling legislation on the 23rd of November 1917.
The RAF defended British skies against the numerically superior German Luftwaffe during 1940, in what historians have called perhaps the most prolonged and complicated air campaign in history. The RAF's defence contributed to the delay and indefinite postponement of Operation Sea Lion, Hitler's planned invasion of the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Winston Churchill marked the effort with his speech on the 20th of August 1940: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
The RAF's primary combat aircraft is the Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, which took on ground attack duties when the Panavia Tornado GR4 retired on the 1st of April 2019. The F-35B Lightning is jointly operated with the Fleet Air Arm, with 48 aircraft delivered by March 2026. The maritime patrol fleet consists of nine Boeing Poseidon MRA1s, and signals intelligence is provided by three Boeing RC-135W Rivet Joints flown by No. 51 Squadron.
At its peak in 1944, more than 1,100,000 personnel served in the RAF. The force drew heavily on Commonwealth countries: the Royal Canadian Air Force contributed more than thirty squadrons, and roughly a quarter of Bomber Command's personnel were Canadian. The Royal Australian Air Force represented around nine per cent of all RAF personnel in the European and Mediterranean theatres.
The Red Arrows are the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, formed in late 1964 at RAF Waddington. They have performed over 4,700 displays in fifty-six countries worldwide. The team grew to nine members in 1966, which enabled their trademark Diamond Nine formation, and switched from the Folland Gnat to the BAE Hawk trainer in late 1979.
The RAF motto is Per Ardua ad Astra, a Latin phrase usually translated as "Through Adversity to the Stars", though the RAF's own official translation is "Through Struggle to the Stars". The motto was suggested by a junior officer named J S Yule in response to a request for suggestions from Colonel Sykes of the Royal Flying Corps.