  We analyze the Tully catalog of nearby galaxies to investigate the local
pancaking effect on the orientation of disk galaxies. We first select only
those edge-on disk galaxies in the catalog whose axis-ratios are less than 0.1
to measure their spin axes unambiguously. A local pancake at the location of
each selected galaxy is found as a plane encompassing the two nearest neighbor
disks. Then, we examine statistically the inclinations of the galaxy spin axes
relative to the local pancake planes. It is detected that the Tully disk
galaxies tend to be inclined onto the local pancake planes, and the average
inclination angles decrease with the pancake scale. We also construct a
theoretical model for the inclination of disk galaxies relative to the local
pancakes in the frame of the linear tidal torque theory. The comparison of the
theoretical prediction with the observational result demonstrates a good
agreement. Finally, we conclude that it is a first detection of the local
pancaking effect on the orientation of disk galaxies, which is consistent with
the scenario that the gravitational tidal field promotes the formation of
pancakes on small mass scale.
