Objects at Rest
April 2007
 In retrospect, I don’t know why it took Sir Isaac Newton so long to figure it out. Long before Newton published his groundbreaking first law of motion in 1687, I have to believe that cottage-wives and at least a few Middle Age parents had learned full well — through firsthand experimentation and experience — that a family member on the medieval couch tended to remain firmly entrenched in that position unless acted upon by a very determined outside force. All Newton did was describe the syndrome in slightly more scientific terms.
Three-hundred-twenty years and a number of scientific revolutions later, much has changed in our understanding of the physical world. But the power of inertia remains every bit as strong as it ever was, and its influence on an airplane’s ability to fly goes far beyond the mechanical equations involved. In order for an airplane to lift off from a runway, you see, it needs more than just enough power to overcome its resistance to acceleration. It needs a pilot capable of applying that power. And if that pilot is, like most of us, a busy, working adult with other demands besides flying in his or her life, the force required to get to the airport and into an airplane may feel greater, at times, than the force required to actually lift that airplane into the sky. Especially if it’s been a bit since he or she has accelerated in that direction.
I’m also not sure that Newton’s law tells the whole story about the effects of inertia — at least with regard to objects of the human kind. Because if the “body at rest” in question is my own, the amount of force required to change that state of affairs also seems to increase the longer I’m out of any habit or activity.
If it’s only been a day or two since I’ve been to the gym, for example, it’s not a big deal to throw on workout clothes, grab the keys and head out the door. If five days or more have passed, however, a workout becomes a more jarring intrusion to my day. I’m not in the rhythm of it anymore, and the default — even in that short period of time — becomes not going, instead of going. If more than two weeks have passed, the effort required to simply put on some shorts and sneakers, stretch, and drive the five minutes to the gym becomes akin to hoisting a 200-pound barbell.
It’s silly, it makes no logical sense, and yet, the phenomenon is absolutely real. It’s only discipline, a conscience that knows I’ll feel better once I go, and the knowledge that it’s only going to get worse the longer I wait, that gives me the acceleration power to get my body back in exercise motion. Resistance to gym workouts, of course, is a common phenomenon. The profitability of many gyms depends on it, in fact. But that resistance is at least partly due to the fact that nobody I know ranks 100 decline sit-ups, 45 bench presses or a half-hour sweating on a treadmill on their list of “incredibly fun things to do with an afternoon.” We do it because it’s good for us, and we like the results.
 Flying, on the other hand, is fun. If it weren’t, we’d all be certifiable for undertaking all the expense, effort, time and risk it entails. And yet, in the course of a busy life, the energy required to switch gears and get back out to the airport can still climb mysteriously higher with the passage of time. Whenever I’ve been in the midst of a long cross-country journey where I’m flying every day, getting my flight gear together and getting out the door to the airport takes almost no mental effort at all. Going flying is the default, and all the other areas of my life take a back seat to that priority. But if I’ve been busy with other things for a while, those other life activities and demands slowly become the default pattern and priority. The idea of going flying begins to loom as a huge, slightly irresponsible side-trip that will take me away from my productivity and set me even further back in my list of other “must dos.”
It’s silly, it makes no logical sense, and yet, the phenomenon is absolutely real. To be fair, flying does require effort, just as physical exercise does. Flying may not be an aerobic workout, but it is a physical and mechanical undertaking, requiring a different alignment of mental gears than art or office work. That’s one of its appeals, of course, but it also means that it’s not always an easy segue from the creative world I inhabit as a writer to the pragmatic, task-oriented world I inhabit as a pilot.
This is where a good flying buddy, like a good running or workout partner, comes in handy. For Newton was also right about what it takes to get objects at rest moving again. Overcoming the inertia of inactivity is far easier with the help of an outside force. It’s also far more fun.
So when I decided I needed to motivate out to the airport for a little post-New Year’s flying practice, I called my buddy Jeff to see if he’d be willing to ride shotgun. Between the Cheetah’s annual, a trip to Ecuador and the holidays, it’d been altogether too long since I’d taken my airplane out for a spin, even if all I did was stay in the airport traffic pattern. I also knew that once I got to the airport and into the air, I’d be really glad that I had. But I only had four post-holiday workdays to get caught up on a month’s worth of deadlines before leaving town again, and my mind was pretty firmly set in office mode. Knowing that Jeff would be standing by the airplane waiting for me at 2:00 somehow made it easier to break off my writing, collect my gear and get out the door.
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