The Six-Pack

Issue #032

✈️ The Crosswind Chronicles

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

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From 41,000 feet

Every pilot trusts the six-pack: airspeed, attitude, altitude, heading, turn coordinator, and vertical speed. Six simple gauges that keep you alive when visibility drops and the horizon disappears.

At home, I’ve got my own version. Not the kind in the fridge, though that one helps sometimes. My six-pack reads patience, humor, presence, energy, grace, and love.

When those stay steady, the flight feels smooth.

But none of them stay steady on their own. If patience dips, humor follows. If energy falls, presence disappears. It’s all connected. Flying or fatherhood, you survive by scanning. A quick sweep across the panel, catching small shifts before they turn into alarms.

That’s the job. Scan the gauges, make tiny corrections, and keep the ride smooth for everyone on board.

The airplane needs its six-pack. So does Dad.

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🗒️ The Dad NOTAM

Subject: Trusting the panel.

My boy was upset the other night over bedtime. Wrong pajamas, wrong stuffed animal, wrong everything. I was already tired and just wanted to get him down quick. My first instinct was to push through and get the lights off.

Then I caught myself. Patience was scraping the bottom, humor had left the cockpit.

I stopped, crouched beside him, and cracked a joke about the stuffed animal being on strike. He laughed, and the whole flight leveled out.

I wanted a quick descent. What he needed was a stable approach.

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🔁 The Go-Around Report

When the first approach does not work, go-around. You can always go-around.

I came home with a list that looked like a preflight inspection. Haircut, lawn, laundry, dry cleaning, car wash, oil changes, workout. I landed at home like a ground crew chief with a stopwatch, moving at full throttle to get everything done before bedtime.

The Captain finally stopped me mid-checklist and said, “Do you not like being home?”

That one hit like a crosswind gust. I had been home less than an hour but still flying pilot brain. They had been running their own pattern all week, and I had just landed right in the middle of it.

Tomorrow’s approach: fewer boxes, slower descent. The only checklist that mattered was the one with names on it.

Bridge: The next morning I realized how right she was. Nobody cared if the lawn got cut or the oil got changed. What they wanted was time in the same cockpit again.

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🧭 Vectors for Home Base

Small adjustments to avoid family turbulence.

The Captain reminded me that my energy sets the tone. If I walk in drained, everyone feels it. If I take five quiet minutes in the garage before stepping back inside, the whole cabin feels steadier.

That tiny pause is like calibrating the altimeter before takeoff. It takes almost no time but can change the entire flight.

This week’s tip: build your own six-pack at home. Write down the six gauges that matter most to you and scan them daily. When the horizon disappears, that panel keeps you flying true.

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🛫 Airport Secrets – The Preflight Walk

Before the first flight of the day, the ramp comes alive. Fuel trucks hiss, baggage carts rattle, and the tug crew waves flashlights through the thin morning haze. The sun cuts a low orange line across the tail, and the air smells like Jet-A and wet concrete.

This is the quiet part of flying. No chatter, no passengers, no checklist yet. Just a slow walk around a jet built to lift hundreds of people through the sky.

You start at the nose and move slow. Pitot tubes. Static ports. Landing lights. Then down to tires, brakes, seams, panels. You listen for small things, a rattle, a drip, a smell that does not belong. The airplane always tells you what kind of day it plans to have.

It is not about finding problems. It is about knowing your jet before you trust it with the climb. That calm scan keeps you steady when the clouds close in later.

Home has its own ramp walk. Not with a flashlight or clipboard, but with presence. A glance at your crew. A check of your own gauges. The quiet scan before the day starts.

Airplanes fly better when the preflight is honest. Families do too.

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💬 Jumpseat Stories

What are the six gauges you rely on when life gets bumpy?

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

Or, if you liked this one, send it to someone in your crew and help grow the flight.

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Until the next leg,

Jake

First Officer, Dad, Human Trying Not to Stall