Aero Academic
Aero Academic
The angle between the chord line of a wing and the relative wind: the quantity that sets how much lift a wing produces and when it stalls.
Angle of attack is the angle at which the relative wind meets an airfoil. It is the angle formed by the chord of the airfoil and the direction of the relative wind, which is the same as the angle between the chord line and the flight path. The FAA Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge explains that it changes during a flight as the pilot changes the direction of the aircraft, and that it is related to the amount of lift being produced.
Two things are easy to confuse with it. Angle of attack is not pitch attitude, because the nose can be pointing at the horizon while the wing is at a high angle of attack in a climb or a steep turn. It is also not airspeed: a wing stalls when its critical angle of attack is exceeded, which can happen at any airspeed, at any attitude and at any weight.
That is why a stall is taught as an angle-of-attack event and why load factor, weight and bank change the speed at which it happens but not the angle. Reducing angle of attack is the first part of every stall recovery.