I saw this thread and had to check in. I've never been to Clovis, which is one of the many highlights of my 20 year career. Unfortunately, my squadron had to move there not long after I retired. To date, the only good thing I've heard about the place is that it results in knowing your fellow squadron members better. I hesitate to use the word "camaraderie." But I guess I could; Vietnam built camaraderie, didn't they?

From the accounts I've heard, you're counting the days until you can leave. Flying suffers (more downgrades are the result of less favorable training conditions that HRT offers), more divorces, poor to no options for any decent educational choices for the kids, a big drop in PME candidate results on promotion boards, lack of adequate housing/rental options, poor support for a base that supported fighters and wasn't ready for the schedule AFSOC lives by, etc., etc., etc. To sum it up: the back room deal worked between Sen Domenici and Gen Brown was a real b@ll buster for the mean and women who weren't going out there for a 2-3 year DO/CC job.

 

I was a FAIP at Reese AFB in Lubbock TX in the early 90s. I had a buddy who flew, F-111s at Cannon.

Pilots and WSOs from Cannon came to Reese for the altitude chamber (did they move the chamber when Reese closed???). Many of them brought their families and made a week of it, shopping at the mall, going to Chili's, etc.

That told me all I needed to know about Clovis.

 

Lubbock is nice, for a smaller sized city. good in-town state university with med school and law school, airline service to/from the city's airport, a decent mall, major restaurants to include Barnes and Noble. I always liked LBB. some light snow in winter but no blizzards, which I always liked (a change of seasons).

 

I went through UPT at Del Rio, we went to Cannon on XC too. After a good look around on arrival, I remember asking someone in base ops, "So...What's there to do here?"

The answer was; Pack a cooler and go to White Sands, pretend you are at a beach! They have plenty of white sand, not much water.

It did make Del Rio look like Palm Beach. At least Del Rio had; 1. The Lake, 2. The River, and 3. Mexico on Friday nights!

 

We enjoyed Lubbock for all the reasons you mention, plus really nice people. Nice place to start raising a family. A little high PA for the mighty Tweet and it could get pretty darned cold in the winter being on the high plains, but at least it was not humid.

 

Beat me to it. Was going to say "spent a week there one night." I too learned the "never stop anywhere you wouldn't want to spend a week rule" while I was there.

 

It was my standard stop when doing a cross country from Pcola to the West Coast. I always got a good turn and it gave me the ability to make SoCal in two legs. PA in the summer left no margin for error on the short runway, but it worked for me. Then again, I never got stuck there. The huge grain elevators in town always stood out.

 

I was a tweet FAIP with Hrkdrivr at Reese, and I would have a bunch of my 111 bros spend a lot of weekends in Lubbock. Our band would play up there on occasion, and well...wow. We were usually the only thing going on.

 

Supers? Es or Fs or either?
I think I'd rather stop in AMA

 

I agree, AMA, great turn. I hated that they took the arresting gear out of Cannon...seems to be a sign of the times as AF consolidates and removes FTRs from various locations.