How can an airplane keep going forward if it has no thrust? Every pilot is familiar with the basic model of aircraft forces:



If lift is greater than weight, the plane climbs, if less, descends.  If thrust is greater than drag, the plane accelerates, if less, decelerates.  In unaccelerated flight, all must be equal.

In an engine-out situation, there is no thrust, so if a constant glide ratio is to be maintained, I thought the plane must be pitched forward so the forward component of lift does the job thrust would normally do in cancelling drag.

However, in the Airplane Flying Handbook, 4-3, figure 4-2, it shows an example lift-drag diagram that shows $L/D_{max}$ ($= V_{BG}$) to be about $6°$ AoA.  Wouldn't that result in lift having a backwards component and slowing down the aircraft to the point of stall?

What am I missing here?
Angle of attack is not equal to pitch angle. Yes you can decompose weight into a forward and a perpendicular component - to airstream! Or you can draw lift relative to airstream.



In this drawing, pitch angle is zero and AoA = 6 deg. Lift now has a forward component relative to gravity.