A year later

A flash of red catches my attention as I turn to enter the downwind leg at a small rural airport north-east of Edmonton. The red warning had caught the attention of my copilot as well, who called out the warning, "Engine fire on the right"

Before rational and common sense could kick in, I turned to look at the flight test examiner who was sitting behind us, expecting to see him playing with bared wires which could be responsible for setting off the engine fire warning system. The examiner raised his hands and shrugged in a way that suggested that the fire warning wasn't his doing. As the fact that the indication wasn't an examiners trick sunk in, the copilot and I settled into the engine fire in flight procedure. Then, as quickly as the fire indication had come, it was gone.

Now established on the downwind leg, my copilot and I ran through the possible explanations for the fire indication. The model of King Air that we were flying uses photo cells that detect light in an otherwise dark engine nacelle compartment to provide warning of a fire. If a given amount of light were to be present in the nacelle, the source could be the light generated by a fire, although that is not always the case. The sides of the engine nacelles have gill vents which allow air to flow through the nacelle for cooling. Under the right circumstances, with the aircraft's tail pointed towards the sun at the right angle, light can enter the nacelle though the cooling vents in a way which can set off the fire detectors. Even while we had just turned with the sun at our tail, the copilot searched for an indication that perhaps the fire warning system hadn't been tricked by the sun's light. With all of the engine instruments indicating normal, and no sign of a fire on the wing, we decided to continue with our landing as planned, and with the plane on the ground we would take a closer look at the engine instruments. With our examiner, who was now acting as a third crew member, in agreeance with our plan, we continued on with the approach, while keeping a sharp eye on the right hand engine's fire detector. Once on the ground, after a few minutes monitoring the engine instruments and the engine for a sign of fire, we once again concluded that while it probably was a fire that had set off the detectors, that fire was 92 million miles away, and in all likelihood, wouldn't give us any more trouble today.

Confident that the only emergencies we would have to deal with now would be those thought up by our examiner, we prepared for the departure back to the city. A thousand feet above the ground, finished with the departure procedure that kept us clear of obstacles, I initiated a left turn that would set us up for the GPS approach back at the city. Just like it had five minutes earlier, with the sun at our tail, the fire detector momentarily flashed again. Although it would have been easy to simply pass it off as the obvious, the co-pilot and I again checked for any sign of a fire. Even while the engine instruments again showed no sign of a fire, which agreed with the view out the right window, mentally I prepared myself again for the possibility that the engine fire indication hadn't been set off by the sun. Again we quickly discussed the situation with the examiner, and with us all on the same page, we set up for the approach to Runway 30. Eight minutes later, the main gear touched down onto the runway, signalling the nearing end of the flight test. Even though the test was technically not over, the most difficult parts were now behind us.
As I taxied in to the hangar, I thought about the difference that a year can make. Last year at this time I was taxiing in from my initial ride to upgrade to Captain. The past year has been trying; I have had days where finding an alternate was difficult, where I spent countless hours enveloped in cloud with the weather at all the airports below me hovering at minimums, reminding myself to relax my grip on the controls. I have also had days where the visibility and lack of cloud allowed a view of everything within a 100 miles. I have learned to be more assertive, while maintaining diplomacy, learned when to stand up, and when to let things be. Perhaps, learning, would be a little more accurate.
I have found my past year flying as a captain has had a similar effect to that of studying for the ATPL exams; for every lesson I have learned, for every question I have answered, there seems to be ten lessons I have yet to learn that pop up to take their place. The further that I get in this career, the more I am beginning to see that what I have learned to date pales in comparison to the lessons that are yet to come.

"Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will." ~Vernon Howard