Definition of "angle of attack" []

• The acute angle between the chord of an airfoil and a line representing the undisturbed relative airflow. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In his 1985 autobiography, Yeager claimed that a rocket thruster on the nose malfunctioned and stuck open, but some pilots at Edwards knowledgeable about the NF-104A and Yeager’s piloting of the aircraft that day have suggested that Yeager “plain screwed up,” letting his pitch attitude and angle of attack get away from him."
• "He could not look at a soldier, the woman — or at any of the curious well-fed faces from the household that peered at him past the Dragoons as they walked by — without rehearsing in his thoughts the swiftest and most savage angle of attack with his razor."