Overall, don't sweat being told you have to come to Corpus. You can find plenty of positives here.
Back in the day, allegedly only married folks were going to Whiting, so that left the rest of us gunning for Corpus over Vance. Most of my friends at the time went Corpus so I was more then happy to go along. I really liked it when I lived there. Living by the beach and 10 minutes from work was awesome, there was a party every night of the week at someones house on the island. Whisky River Wednesdays and Ferrah's Friday were in full swing and Pelican and some other IP owned bar off Airline had just opened up to compete for the crowds of SNA's and their SNAGs. Course rules were easy, and Boomers were always claiming to be better pilots then Rangers since their IPs were mostly assholes, and Rangers were content being in the happy squadron where nothing else really mattered.
When it came time to shop for orders I knew I wanted to fly, so VTs made the list. I hated Pensacola from my experience there just after Ivan hit (town was in shambles, people were constantly angry and bitter, night life consisted of Chans, O'Riley's, Seville and Intermission, Flounders and what remained of the tents for the Bama), but I wanted to complete a specific Masters program and I wanted to fly T-6 so I bit the bullet. Pensacola has been a great place to live since I arrived. Downtown has built up with places to go out etc. Milton/Pace a little less so, but the drive is only 15 extra minutes to live some place not as shitty (and the cab fare to Milton from Pcola is only double, so that means one less round at the bar if you're rationing money). Got "stuck" flying T-34s for a little over a year before I transitioned to T-6. I got to observe that 34 students are generally much better prepared for briefs and GK wise because of having Civilian instructors teaching classes more then getting CAI'd and theres 35 years of gouge out there and much hasn't changed lately. T-6 students are much better prepared to physically fly the plane on the first contact flights because they've got the visual sims and get some decent practice in every phase before hitting the plane.
T-34 is a more forgiving plane in the pattern when the students get slow and has better legs for teaching guys how to land etc, and handle cross winds better then T-6. T-6 kicks the shit out of aerobatics where the 34 struggled and does stuff that the 34 couldn't... I could really create a stellar harassment package when it came to pre-checkride contacts in the 34 since we could pull CBs, make students crank the gear, don O2 mask and open the canopy- all at once. T-6s EP scenarios are a lot more straight forward in the plane (No LAPLs, LAPL/Ps just pull the handle) so the profiles are pretty canned. T-6 is a much better IFR cruiser and it's Nav suite is something I trust to fly IMC with (not so much with racheting T-34 RMIs and Gyros and GPS that would regularly shit etc). The G limits in the T-6 are nice, especially when a student flies areo very poorly, dicks up a spin and we have to avoid other aircraft as we bust through the bottom of our box, briefly, approach vectors us into other aircraft in marginal VMC weather etc. When T-6 first got introduced to Whiting the attrition rate jumped to approx 15-20%, but has since been steadily making its way back down towards the historical T-34 avg of 9-11% as squadrons learn how to fly them, and beefed up their standardization oversight of instructing and check-ride expectations (T-34 transition IPs had different expectations of students then purebred T-6 guys, and then each squadron had their own way of doing things). The Air Conditioning in the T-6 is awesome, the ejection seats are a hell of a lot more comfortable and the handle gives you a pretty reliable fighting chance to live when shit goes really wrong, really fast. I've never doubted if I was going to be able to stop in a -34 (Can't say the same about the T-6) and having two primary Nav-aids (TACAN and VOR) is really convenient and gives more broad exposure to students. RVFAC ILS is always nice though.
Being sent to Corpus is not a death sentence by any means. It's still an awesome time if you look past the negatives. Pensacola is the same way. Same thing with the planes as well. There are plusses and minuses to each platform. Both will kick your ass as a student and be a hell of a lot more capable then you are in the beginning of the program. Both will make you semi-competant pilots (as far as students are concerned) and prepare you for whatever advanced pipeline that you end up in. Coming from either will create things to adapt from when you get to advanced too so there isn't one plane that totally prepares you for advanced over the other.
All in all, its a win-win situation for anyone who selects primary in Whiting or primary in Corpus. Don't sweat the small stuff- and its mostly small stuff.
