Why Is There An Induced Angle Of Attack?
I have mentioned earlier in the course that physics is not exactly intuitive. The induced angle of attack is a good example. Most people accept it very easily, but if you think about it, it is a contradiction of Newton’s Law of Reactions. Remember that Newton said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. He did not say that for every action there is a roughly equal but not exactly opposite reaction. So, if lift is a reaction to the wing pushing on the air and deflecting it (as we said it is in the lift chapter) why doesn’t the reaction occur exactly at right angle to the relative wind?
