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.
