No, I mean when the angle of attack of the wing gets too low in flight. This can and does happen due to gusts and thermal activity in the air. Normally a ram-a

No, I mean when the angle of attack of the wing gets too low in flight. This can and does happen due to gusts and thermal activity in the air. Normally a ram-air paraglider wing would collapse at low angle of attack due to lack of pressure inside the wing (it only works in a certain range of angles of attack), causing both the wing and the pilot to start falling, picking up speed and restoring angle of attack, and re-inflating again. It's kinda hard to explain concisely in more detail. With a rigid inflated paraglider wing however, if the angle of attack becomes too low, the wing might get unloaded (falls faster than the pilot) and will pitch down even further because that's what a plank wing does in the absence of pendulum weight provided by the pilot. So the wing dives down and gets entangled with either the pilot, the lines or both. I'm a bit rusty on the exact aerodynamics of paragliders because I only fly hang gliders, but this is roughly what happens. If you want to know more about how ram-air paraglider wings stay inflated, check out this doc – http://downloads.flyozone.com/pdf/PG/ozone_shark_nose_en.pdf http://downloads.flyozone.com/pdf/PG/ozone_shark_nose_en.pdf – it talks about a new ram-air intake technology and explains how ram air wings work.