No.
The issue here is with brownian motion of ambient air molecules.
Air molecules are always moving, bouncing into each other, and against ambient surfaces. This is the source of atmospheric pressure. Under most circumstances, the impacts of these particles is uniform, and the forces cancel out overall. The local disruption of that pressure is how a water pump and a siphon works. The normal, uniform distribution of these impacts is what makes soap bubbles round.
The issue, is that the aggressiveness of these particles hitting each other and surfaces is directly tied to temperature, or directed force.
If you heat air up, the particles move faster. More correctly, supplying energy to the air molecules speeds them up, and this increase in chaotic ambient kinetic movement is known as "heat".
Inertia is the measurement of resistance that an object with weight (mass) has against a change in velocity; it resists being sped up as much as it resists being slowed down. This figure is directly tied to the object's mass. Reducing the inertial resistence of an object (so that it is easier to push) that is already moving, will increase its velocity to rebalance the equasion.
Air coming into contact with the field of the inertial damper will suddenly increase in velocity uniformly and chaotically. The temperature of the air will suddenly spike, and excess energy will bleed out as light from black body emissions.
Arresting 50% of inertia would double the temperature of the random air interactions around the ship. The same is true for the molecules in the ship's crews bodies. They would suddenly jump from a normal human body temp of 98.6f to over 180f, and instantly cook to death.
You have to slowly let the field build up, so that the temp rise from the supression is balanced by the (slow!) Rate of blackbody heat emission as light. This means several hours of preflight.
During that time, the crew would *have* to go into cryo if any significant reduction of inertial force was suppressed. This is because what would have been normal metabolism of the crew suddenly now has enough energy to detonate them like bombs. Frozen, they don't metabolize nearly as quickly, and the energy of those reactions is easier to handle.
Even in a sleeper pod, the field being active in the atmosphere would cause sudden and pronounced heating of the air as the energy it already carried suddenly made particles move faster.
The ground the ship was standing on would intercept that field. It would increase in temp as the field saturated. Grass would catch fire, but the fire would only burn inside the bubble.
The ship would be enveloped in a heady orange glow from energetic particles. The temp an obect from outside the field would suddenly become after passing inside would be directly tied to the aamount of inertial force being supressed. 50% reduction in inertial mass means 100% increase in effective temperature, because the thermal energy already in the object would become twice as effective. Throw a snoball into the field, it turns into water. It falls, leaves the feild, and prompty freezes again. Total thermal energy is conserved, what changes is how much influence that energy has.
Ambient temp air hits the field from random air movements. The air is suddenly very hot! It glows, releasing some of the energy due to blackbody radiation. It leaves the field, and is now COOLER than when it went in.
A fully saturated inertial damper field would be a mysterious bubble of flaming hell, with snow falling under it.
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