SonofRojBlake

Paraglider pilot of ten years' experience here. First of all: a paraglider definitely can hover, if by "hover" you mean achieve a groundspeed of zero - which is what you described in the original post. This is actually relatively simple in principle: The glider is constantly moving forwards and downwards through the air. Key parameters are airspeed, which may be typically 30km/h, and sink rate, which may be typically 1.5 m/s. All you need to do is find a ridge where the wind is blowing a constant 25km/h or so perpendicular to the slope. The slope itself will divert the air upwards. If it is steep enough, in a limited region close to the slope, the air will be going up faster than 1.5m/s. If you take off into this wind, your glider will rise to the point where the upward motion of the air balances the downward motion of the glider. If you apply the brakes to reduce your airspeed by 5km/h or so, your airspeed will be 25km/h... and your ground speed will be zero. You're "hovering". But you're doing so only as long as you point directly into the wind and maintain an airspeed equivalent to the windspeed. Note that if the windspeed increases to 30kph, you are now in a dangerous position - even with the brakes fully off, unable to fly into the wind, you are very limited in your options, and must fly downwind. We try to avoid this state of affairs. We do have foot-operated speed systems or hand-operated trimmers that can lower the angle of attack of the wing to increase airspeed, but using it to stay upwind is not advisable. A paraglider cannot hover like a helicopter, i.e. achieve an airspeed of zero.