Pros
-Working on opto-mechanical sensors such as Raytheon MTS-A and MTS-B turrets and Wescam MX-15HDi turrets is fascinating and enjoyable. -Due to lack of personnel retention resulting from the poor work location, this job is an easy way to get your foot in the door for deployed FSR gigs. -Two week Wescam MX-15HDi formal training course was phenomenal and opens many doors. On the job training is also pretty great and coworkers are good mentors. There's also plenty of manuals, diagrams and tech data to dig through for added context/theory. -Company offers you $5250 in education benefits per year (some folks get their A&P or even PPL with it, others use it for online college courses such as SNHU or WGU). -Wonderful supervisor and program manager, excellent coworkers and relaxed work environment. -Other parts of New Mexico are beautiful, lots of outdoorsy stuff is available if you're willing to drive a few hours.
Cons
-Living in Clovis, NM is like being deployed overseas to Afghanistan/Iraq, but without the deployment pay, it actually does resemble Helmand Province quite a bit on dusty days. Also, the locals can be pretty insufferable, crime is high despite being a rural town, and the nearest cities/airports are 1.5 to 4 hours away. It might be more bearable living here if you have a family, hobbies to distract you or you're just a homebody. -Lack of deployment opportunities. It's supposed to be 90 day rotations with 1-2 deployments a year, but the Afghanistan pullout has shaken things up a bit. You're probably looking at a deployment every 1.5 to 2 years now. If deployments ever significantly picked up again, this would be a great gig, but being stuck in Clovis all the time just feels like some cruel form of punishment. -Feels like the Cannon AFB (Clovis, NM) shop is the "B team" compared to the other shop at Hurlburt Field (Fort Walton Beach, FL). Less staff, equipment, parts, deployments, no shift differential pay, general pay being lower (cost of living difference) and a tremendously worse location etc.