Genghis,
You are absolutely right - it is a more grapically correct representation to use the airflow vector resolution. I tried to give a "laymans" explaination of the problem
- should know that it would cause notin' but trouble
High-speed aircraft have used short/stubby, deep chord wings, X3 and X15 being some of the more extreme examples, the F104 one of the more conventional. These aircraft used it
instead of large sweep angles to achieve a high Mcrit. But of course, the low aspect ratio made for lousy low-speed handling, so not an option on transports.
Btw, your explaination also demonstrates how big an increse in sweep angle it takes to bring by a small increase in Mcrit.
Brgds,
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