What is being discussed here is a principal that is used when calculating fuel efficiency on a space launch. There's a reason why most spaceflight launch at the equatorial area of the earth and why they do their gravity turn to the east. This is because they were already being pushed that direction, and it is much more efficient to move with the direction you're already moving. To give you an example of how this works...
Use a moderately powerful RC car motor (make sure it's on a nice stable mount vertically). Attach a stick with two opposing counterweights on either end of it, with some sort of quick release that you can set off remotely. Start the motor. when motor is spinning the weights sufficiently fast, release them. You will notice, they keep moving the direction of the spin, they don't just stop (which is pretty much what you're suggesting with the aircraft).
Now, to complete this, we have to take into account a couple things as factors in our experiment. There are other forces working on these counterweights besides inertia. There is the planet's gravity, pulling in a perpendicular direction of the spinning motor. There counterweights will suffer from air resistance. Now, imagine that this gravity is pulling from the center of the spin, and the air is all moving the same direction as the spinning. Also, gravity is effected by this spin. I'm not really sure how to describe it to you, hopefully someone with more knowledge of relativity can help with that. But there you go, that's how airplane flights work. If you go the other way it's harder... because you're already being pushed one way.