Dtom,
The information that I posted before is "Wrong" so I want to appoligize for the confusion. I said:
I agree with you that the explination seems flawed and I believe that the right side of the prop (the down going blade) is operating at a lower AOA and the up coming blade is operating at a higher angle of attack (at least that's what I see when I draw it out).
Well I took a little time and drew it out correctly (not in my head) and the AOA of the downward going blade does increase, but the change in magnitude of the velocity is still what is the main cause of the greater thrust not the change in AOA. In the case of a high pitch prop the change in AOA may actually off set the greater thrust due to the downward prop seeing greater velocity. I've attached some drawings maybe they will help. During a normal takeoff run with a tail dragger, the change in magnitude of the velocity from one side of the prop to the other would be about a 20 to 30 percent. So, 1.2^2 = 1.44 or 1.3^2=1.69 so the velocity alone account for about a 45 to 70 percent difference in thrust. Even with a low pitch prop in a normal takeoff run we are probably only talking about a change of 15 percent (the coeff. of thrust would go from something like .08 to maybe .07).
Steve