Sort of adjacent to where this thread has veered, I'd like to hear some feedback from folks here on the sense/relative merits of secondary/third tier duty stations (read: not Oceana, Lemoore, SD, etc). As a civilian and an admitted homer for New Orleans who has advocated for NAS JRB New Orleans, reserve tacair (specifically VFA-204), I've always been hopeful that there's room at the table for a tier of Naval Air Stations below the Oceana/Lemoore MJBs and Fallons of the world. Locally we're hopeful that the access to Gulf of Mexico air to air ranges between NOLA and the Florida bases, air to ground ranges at Camp Shelby and Pineville, and a few other items keep the NAS and its tenant commands here, and perhaps attracts more visiting squadrons doing workups/keeping the knives sharpened. It would be great to continue to draw traffic as airspace becomes more constrained elsewhere, or the NIMBY/environmental folks become more vocal.
The flip side to that is being circumspect about challenges of New Orleans (public schools are generally not great, at least in New Orleans proper, crime is an issue, cost of living better than most of the above but not cheap), and the real risk of continued consolidation means NAS NO could be on the chopping block entirely.
I certainly understand the needs and direction of the Navy come first, and understand New Orleans is not a 'Navy town' with a huge concentration of a common community - anecdotally, folks tend to either love being here or can't wait to leave. I do feel passionately about the economic and cultural positive impact of the base and its personnel. Apologies for the longwinded near-threadjack, but again, would love to hear the thoughts and experiences of others on this, and felt it was a good opportunity to throw this in here.
As an aside, this is my first post after lurking for a number of years - wanted to thank the folks active on here, as it's been immensely helpful absorbing information about Naval Aviation writ large. I never served, and have always tried to be sensitive to participating and becoming involved in this community respectfully and appropriately. This has been a great resource.