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I'm pretty sure Ron would be happy to return to those days. As long as he is among the favoured part of the population that is.

Ron is trolling you by suggesting Trump is trolling you. The correct response to either is laughter. It will help to keep you from allowing the absurdity of both statements from affecting you.

Stupidity is 100% hereditary. Richard Nixon's popularity was in the mid to high 30s right up until he was forced to resign or be impeached. That is about the same percentage as tRump consistently maintains. It appears that the same gullible ignorant swine that loved Nixon reproduced and generated a whole bunch more gullible ignorant swine.

I'll leave it to Christians to get all "Churchy", not my thing. But, yes, predatory pay practices is exactly what I meant. Walmart's employee's are subsidized by your tax dollars. Do some research.

That's the bottom line - and why, without a minimum wage, employers will nearly always pay less than a living wage. Because if they don't, then the customers will go to Wal-Mart, who will always pay the minimum wages they are legally obligated to pay. (We have an example of this just above.) That's the problem. And minimum wage works, sorta, to solve that problem; it mandates a 'fairer' (i.e. closer to livable) wage. And since it's a law, then Wal-Mart and Target and Costco can't get around it by cutting wages (and thus becoming more competitive.) That way the store that lowballs its employees is not rewarded by the marketplace. But at best that's a stopgap solution. Because as time goes on, and the world globalizes, people are moving from Walmart to Amazon to Alibaba - and there's no way any American, ever, is going to compete with Chinese wages. So a minimum wage hike is necessary in the short term, if only to keep much of America out of bankruptcy. But it's solving the wrong problem. There is a much larger problem of the growing divide between the poor and the rich. We now have poor in this country who will never get out of debt, and we have rich who need never work again because their investments make them $100K (or much more) a year. Year after year, that gap will grow as the rich reinvest that money and continue to accrue capital, while the poor simply get more in debt. (And indeed, much of the reason the rich are getting richer is BECAUSE the poor are going deeper into debt. Witness the subprime mortgage bubble.) And that problem, in turn, is based on the concept of an ever-growing economy, one that is mathematically unsustainable. So something very fundamental has to change, and paying poor people a little more is not that change. One thing that can force the change is a collapse of our debt-based economy - but that's a very painful way to change. Another way is something like a move to a central bank for debt (i.e. money) creation but that is sure to be opposed by whatever party doesn't propose it.

He's defining "American" kind of like how some Christians define "Christian." As in -- as long as they agree with me, they're (whatever). Wendy P.

Holy Moly Ken, no need to go all linear ego over this. Let's just leave it to Ron to define the group his "we" includes but there is no doubt he is as ignorant as he believes we believe. He is also, deluded, credulous and blindered. None of which is to say he is without some smarts. After all, he easily trolls plenty of people here who definitely have smarts. He's also a master of secret messaging. For example, did you know that Linear Ego is an anagram of Orange Lie? He's tricky, too.

There should be no issue with you buying your own goggles, as long as they are actual skydiving goggles. Also, don't get them with tint. Instructors want to be able to see your eyes. As for the helmet, it's likely that the drop zone won't want you to use your own helmet until you are cleared from having to have a radio (the radios are integral to the helmets at my home dz). As for the jump suit, you'll have to run that by your S&TA, but I don't see a safety reason for them to prohibit you from that. Altimeters, same thing: run it by your S&TA. Don't even think about buying your first rig until you're licensed though, and definitely lean on your instructors and the experienced folks to point you in the right direction with any big purchases (altis, rig, suits & clothing, helmet)

1st off, a 170 at your experience level is likely too small. There's a sticky thread in the "Canopy & Swooping" forum with Brian Germain's downsizing chart. It's a good read. 2nd off, there's lots of places to find a rig. Classifieds on here, FB "buy & sell" groups, gear stores, ect. But the best place is your local DZ. Put the word out that you are looking for an appropriate rig for a beginner.

The best people to ask is the instructors that are familiar with your flying abilities. Short answer will likely be it’s to small. With full gear, your wing load is around 1.3. Knowing nothing else about you or your abilities I would suggest a 210-220 range at the minimum. Again talk to your instructors not just random people on the internet. One other note the title of the post looks like and ad to sell a rig instead of being posted in the classifieds. It happens in this section often enough that this post might be ignored. I almost did anyway

Remove the word fail from your vocabulary. Did you learn something? Then you didn't fail. Were there things you did right? Then you didn't fail. Are you alive? Then you didn't fail. Student jumps can be way overwhelming. There are lots of people who have to repeat a category or three and yet go on to be excellent skydivers. Just keep at it. You can only fall if you don't try.

If it's any consolation, what you're experiencing is very common. At a glance it could seem like gravity does all the work, how hard could it be? Truth is it's overwhelming for many people. Some of us failed an AFF level multiple times and went on to make thousands of jumps. We all start out at "square one". Best advice I could give is to lean on your instructors for tips and help. They are the best equipped to talk you through it all. And the wind tunnel, in my opinion, can help a lot. Best of luck! Welcome to the sport!

I have about 700 jumps on a Rage 170. Flights are uneventful. Landings are nice. Even with a conventional landing, the Rage will maintain a horizontal flight for quite some time. Openings were quite hard for the first 50 or 100 jumps. No complaints for openings after the first 100 jumps. Then I had it relined. Now openings are hard again. I am eagerly awaiting until the jump numbers increase and the openings become slower again when the lines age. I would recommend buying a Rage that has 50-100 jumps on the current lineset.