Originally Posted by
MechEngr
Consider the case of dropping a level dinner plate. The pitch angle is 0 degrees and the AoA is 90 degrees. Don't use the good china for this experiment.
Great analogy, in other words the angle of attack is the angle between where the aircraft nose is pointing (In the case of the dish let's suppose its falling flat therefore the "nose" would be more or less pointing towards the horizon, and where the aircraft is going: vertically down.
The angle between where our dish or hypothetical aircraft its pointing and where its going is roughly 90 degrees, which could happen fully stalled stick held back pancaking towards the ground.
The confusion comes due to the horizon (Which should be removed from the equation when considering AofA), in this particular case with reference to the horizon the pitch angle is virtually zero, though with respects to the trajectory (Pointing vertically down) its close to 90 degrees