Is the Air Force really the best military branch?
It depends
Pros of the AF are an overall relaxed climate compared to the other branches. Since pilots are the core Generals of the AF, and the roots of the AF are centered around aviation (and not ground combat), the AF gets off less on being "rambo" wannabes and focuses more on job and technical competency. There is also a greater focus on continuous educational development. And lastly the AF also has way more jobs that translate to civilian applicability. Some cool operational bases on the AD side, a few bases in Florida, California, Colorado, Italy, Japan, England, and this isn't considering cool assignments (knew a guy who had a intel job in Australia).
The cons of the AF are its smaller than the Army and Navy and filled with cacs far more. AF isnt as rowdy as the Army so your stories of fukkery won't be as cool as army or navy stories. AF also skews more conservative than the Army and Navy as well so a lotta people are younger and married and more square (especially the officer corps). Alotta of shytty career fields are also where the most needs are (aircraft maintenance being the biggest culprit) so if you don't kill your ASVAB and double down on getting a good job you'll get screwed.
And there's way more shytty bases than cool ones especially if youre black. Even the southern states bases are in the middle of nowhere IMO.