Preflight Check

Issue #037

✈️ The Crosswind Chronicles

Navigating life’s gusts, on and off the flight deck.

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☕ From 41,000 Feet

The APU hums low, coffee cooling beside the throttles. Ramp lights stretch long across the tarmac, orange against blue. The faint burn of jet fuel hangs in the air, thin and clean, like the morning before motion. Inside the cockpit, everything’s routine. Familiar. Quiet in the way only early mornings can be.

I start the flow. Switches, toggles, levers. Muscle memory moving faster than thought.

Bleeds on. Packs auto. Flight directors on. Trim in the green. Fuel pumps on.

The captain nods once, eyes scanning, then calls for the checklist.

“Logbook?”

“Checked.”

“Landing gear pins?”

“Three aboard.”

“Fire warning and overheat?”

“Checked.”

“FMC?”

“Loaded and cross-checked.”

“Fuel?”

“Eighteen-five. Center pumps on.”

He marks the page with a pen click, sets it down, and looks out the window.

All systems ready.

Still, something in me hesitates. Not about the airplane. About myself.

There’s a kind of noise that doesn’t come through the radios. The mind already sprinting ahead. The body still catching up.

I take a breath.

Patience. Humor. Margin.

The systems I forget to check when I’m in a hurry.

Outside, a tug pushes the next airplane off the gate, beacon flashing in slow rhythm. I watch it move across the ramp until it disappears into the dark.

Maybe that’s what mornings like this are for. Not the work, not the motion. Just the pause, the quiet verification before the day really starts.

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🛫 Dad NOTAM

Subject: Gauges off the chart.

Before the house wakes up, I sometimes imagine what my own NOTAMs would read if I posted them before each day.

Pilot fatigue moderate. Visibility improving. Occasional frustration in the vicinity of children under five.

Yesterday morning, my boy came running in before sunrise, hair wild, already reliving everything we saw the day before.

“Big snowman, Daddy! Ten feet! So big! Why?”

“Max no work. Button no work. Why?”

“Ninja Turtles? Watch Turtles? Why no on?”

He barely paused for air. Each word tumbled out with new excitement, half story, half question, the way only a three-year-old can talk when his world still feels brand-new.

I tried to keep up, answering between sips of coffee, but the words came out short. He didn’t notice. He just kept going, voice full of wonder.

That’s when I caught myself. I hadn’t checked my own gauges. Patience low. Humor minimal. Margin empty.

So I took a breath, pulled him close, and just listened. No corrections, no explanations. Just his little voice spinning the world awake.

He kept talking, and I just listened, thankful for the sound of his world still waking up inside mine.

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🧑‍✈️ Pilot vs Passenger

Who’s really running the checklist?

There’s a moment before boarding when I watch the first passengers step down the jet bridge. Phones in one hand, coffee in the other, bags slung half-open. They’re already on the move, halfway into the day, answering emails and dodging each other’s carry-ons. Most haven’t looked up once.

I can’t blame them. I used to start my mornings the same way, full throttle from the alarm to the door, convinced that motion meant momentum.

But up front, nothing launches until everything’s checked. Two people verify every switch, every number, every word. If something feels off, we stop. We find it. We fix it.

Passengers live by convenience. Pilots live by confirmation.

At home, I catch myself slipping back into passenger mode. Wake up, scroll, react. Go wherever the day drags me. My boy starts talking before I’ve even found my bearings, and I’m halfway to impatience before I’ve said good morning.

That’s when I realize the difference. A pilot starts the day with intention. A passenger just boards and hopes for the best.

These days, before the house wakes up, I try to run my own little flow.

Coffee. Quiet. A breath.

Patience on. Humor armed. Margin full.

The day goes better when I captain it, not just ride it.

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🔁 Go-Around Report

When the first approach doesn’t work, go-around. You can always go-around.

Last night, the captain took bath time while I stayed in the kitchen. The sink was full, dishes stacked from dinner, and the baby had started her pre-bed wails from the other room. Every time I turned on the faucet, the cries got louder.

Instead of getting frustrated, I walked over, rubbed her back, and whispered that she wasn’t alone. She settled. I went back to the kitchen. A minute later, the same thing. Wails again.

So I changed the plan. I strapped her to my chest, secured her close, and went back to the dishes. She calmed instantly. I could feel her breathing match mine. The house started to steady.

It felt good, like I’d built my own flight plan and it was working. I unloaded, loaded, rinsed, careful not to bump her or move too fast. Every motion felt deliberate, smooth, controlled.

Then I heard half a sentence from the bathroom. “Let’s show Daddy…”

I kept rinsing, half listening, half proud that the night was running on rhythm. When I finally looked up, they were standing there, my boy in his Bluey robe, dripping and grinning, the captain behind him with a towel in hand.

I said, without even turning fully around, “What?”

He froze. His face fell. The grin disappeared. A second later, he was crying.

I didn’t even know what I’d missed. He just wanted to show me his robe. The same one I’ve seen a hundred times, but this time was special because he wanted to share it.

And I wasn’t there.

Later that night, I noticed the robe still hanging on the hook. Damp. Waiting.

The dishes could have waited. The flight could have held short.

Tomorrow’s Approach: Presence first, progress second. The checklist isn’t what gets you home, it’s what reminds you where home really is.

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🧭 Vectors for Home Base

Small adjustments to avoid family turbulence.

That night stuck with me more than I expected. It wasn’t the mistake. It was how easy it is to drift when things look steady on the surface.

I’d been so focused on keeping the rhythm of the evening that I forgot what the rhythm was for. The captain didn’t need a clean kitchen. She needed a teammate. My boy didn’t need a perfect house. He needed his dad’s eyes for two seconds and a smile that said, I see you.

It’s strange how often I can stay calm at work and miss it at home. Up front, I know when to slow down. I watch the instruments. I hear the change in engine tone, the shift in airspeed. But in the living room, I sometimes forget that families have instruments too. You can hear when the energy changes if you’re paying attention.

That night, after the kids were asleep, I walked back into the kitchen. The tile still cool under my feet. The smell of soap in the air. Quiet everywhere else. I looked at the sling on the counter and the towel still hanging on the bathroom door. It all felt like a reminder.

Every flight starts smoother when both pilots brief the same plan. Home’s no different. When one of us is deep in the work and the other is holding the chaos together, that’s the moment to call for a vector, not a report.

A small adjustment. A shared heading. A quiet nod that says, we’ve got this one together.

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💬 Jumpseat Stories

Every day starts with a kind of preflight. Some of us run it with intention. Some of us just push the throttles and hope the engines catch.

When was the last time you slowed down long enough to check your own gauges before the day took off?

Was your patience full? Humor armed? Margin steady?

Reply to this article or email crosswindchronicles@gmail.com.

Or, if you know someone who could use a little more calm before takeoff, send this to them. It might help them find their own flow before the next climb.

Sometimes the best flights start long before the engines ever turn.

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Until the next leg,

Jake

First Officer, Dad, Human Trying Not to Stall