An experimental and numerical study has been performed to improve the understanding of the air/liquid interaction in an air-blasted breaking water sheet. This research is focused in the near field close to the exit slit, because it is in this region where instabilities develop and grow, leading to the sheet breakup. In the experiments, several relevant parameters were measured including the sheet oscillation frequency and wavelength, as well as the droplet size distribution and the amplification growth rate. The flow was also investigated using linear instability theory. In the context of existing papers on instability analysis, the numerical part of this work presents two unique features. First, the air boundary layer is taken into account, and the effects of air and liquid viscosity are revealed. Second, the equations are solved for the same parameter values as those in the experiments, enabling a direct comparison between calculations and measurements; although qualitatively the behaviour of the measured variables is properly described, quantitative agreement is not satisfactory. Limitations of the instability analysis in describing this problem are discussed. From all the collected data, it is confirmed that the oscillation frequency strongly depends on the air speed due to the near-nozzle air/water interaction. The wave propagates with accelerating interface velocity which in our study ranges between the velocity of the water and twice that value, depending on the air velocity. For a fixed water velocity, the oscillation frequency varies linearly with the air velocity. This behaviour can only be explained if the air boundary layer is considered.