to neutralize the momentum the earth has acquired being attracted to
the plane,
No. Being attracted to something does not cause momentum. There
must be relative motion for momentum.

Being attracted to something and having no force resisting the
attraction (which is the case microscopically inbetween collisions)
allows relative motion to occur. That's how things fall down, acquiring
momentum in the process. Of course the earth falls up at the same time,
so depending on whether or not you include the earth, you can argue no
net momentum change.

No, it is not momentum that keeps the aircraft from falling, it is
lift. The lift is produced by a pressure difference through the
wing.

.... which is caused by microscopic collisions, which each transfer
momentum from an air molecule to the wing. This is what pressure is.

"Lift" is a shorthand for this process, the same way raising to a power
is a shorthand for repeated repeated addition.

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.