The go-around and the bad landing every applicant tries to save instead of just flying away

A go-around is a normal, professional maneuver—not an emergency or a sign of failure. The mechanics are simple and follow a fixed order: power, pitch, configuration. The hard part isn’t flying the maneuver; it’s making the decision to commit early, before a bad landing turns into a runway loss-of-control accident.

If you can’t remember the last time you actually flew a go-around—throttle in, pitched for climb, flying away from a runway you were ten feet above—you’re not alone. And that’s exactly why this skill deserves real attention.

Is a Go-Around an Emergency or a Failure?

No. A go-around is one of the most routine, professional things a pilot can do. The airlines treat it that way: a stabilized approach that goes bad at 500 feet means they go around, fly the missed approach, come back, and land. No drama, no ego.

The trouble starts in primary training, where many pilots absorb the opposite lesson—that landing is the goal you’re being graded on. So when a landing falls apart, the instinct is to fix it, salvage it, force it down, because going around feels like quitting.

That instinct is dangerous. A large share of runway loss-of-control accidents—airplanes departing the side of the runway, nosing over, or porpoising into a prop strike—began as a landing that should have been a go-around two seconds earlier. The decision was available. The pilot just didn’t take it.

How Do You Fly a Go-Around Correctly?

The go-around is three actions, in a specific order, and the order matters: power, pitch, configuration.

1. Power first. Apply full throttle smoothly but without hesitation—in most trainers, firewall it. Be smooth, because slamming the throttle in a high-power single produces a yaw and pitch-up you need to be ready for. But don’t baby it either; you need that energy now, not in three seconds.

2. Pitch second. Expect a strong nose-up tendency the instant power comes in, especially with full flaps deployed. Control it. Arrest the descent first, then establish the climb attitude for Vx or Vy as the situation requires. Don’t let the nose balloon up and get slow, and don’t fight it so hard that you stay flat and never climb. The examiner wants to see you capture a positive rate and hold a proper climb attitude.

3. Configuration third. This is where pilots get into trouble. Do not dump all the flaps at once. In a Cessna 172, set flaps to 20 degrees right away to cut drag, then milk the rest up incrementally once you have a positive rate of climb and you’re accelerating. Retract everything at once down low and slow and the wing loses lift—you can sink right back toward the runway. Know your airplane and check your POH; the numbers differ in a Piper and differ again in a complex airplane.

Say it out loud the next time you brief an approach: power, pitch, configuration.

When Should I Decide to Go Around?

The mechanics are easy—anyone can shove the throttle in and climb. The part that actually fails pilots is the decision, the moment you commit.

Picture this: you’re on short final, a little fast and a little high, but you think you can make it work. You cross the threshold and you’re floating. The airplane won’t come down. You’re now a third of the way down a 4,000-foot runway, still floating, with a knot forming in your stomach.

Most pilots wait—just a little longer to see if it settles. Then they’re halfway down the runway, they force it on, it bounces, and now they’re back in the air, slow and nose-high, behind the airplane. A simple float has become a genuine emergency.

The fix was available the entire time. It was at the threshold, when the float began: go around. Easy, boring, and safe.

What Is a Predetermined Go-Around Point?

This is the single habit that will do more for your landing safety than another fifty practice landings.

Set a commitment point before you ever cross the fence. Pick a spot—the first taxiway, the first thousand-foot markers, whatever fits your airplane and runway. Then make a deal with yourself during the briefing: if you are not firmly on the mains by that point, you are going around. No debate, no negotiation in the moment.

You decide on the ground, when you’re calm and your judgment is sharp. In the air, you simply execute the decision you already made—because the moment of the bad landing is exactly when your judgment is worst.

What Go-Around Mistakes Do Examiners See on the Checkride?

1. Treating it like a surprise. The examiner will almost certainly give you a go-around, often a simulated one when you’re set up nicely. Applicants jump, get startled, and fumble the throttle. You know it’s coming—it’s a standard ACS task. Brief it to yourself on every approach during training so it becomes a reflex.

2. Forgetting traffic and the runway environment. A go-around isn’t only about your airplane. You’re climbing out, possibly over traffic that landed ahead of you or someone in the pattern. Sidestep to the right of the runway to keep that traffic in sight, and announce it: “Cessna six-five-two, going around, runway three-six.” Examiners want situational awareness, not just stick and rudder.

3. The slow, sad go-around. Half throttle, flat pitch, flaps milking up too slowly, the airplane mushing ten feet off the deck for a quarter mile. When you go, go—full power, fly the airplane, climb away. Decisiveness is the whole skill.

4. Pride. The unwillingness to go around because some part of you feels it admits you couldn’t grease it. The best pilots go around all the time—a gust at the wrong moment, a deer near the runway, an airplane slow to clear, a sight picture that just feels off. They don’t agonize; they fly away and come back. The go-around is a sign of a disciplined pilot, not a struggling one.

Make it a comfortable, well-worn tool now, while someone is sitting next to you to help. Most of this aligns with the Airman Certification Standards go-around and rejected landing task, and the FAA’s Airplane Flying Handbook breaks down the mechanics in detail—worth reading before your next lesson.

Key Takeaways

• A go-around is routine, not a failure. Treat it the way the airlines do—a normal, professional response to an approach that isn’t working.
• Fly it in order: power, pitch, configuration. Full power smoothly, arrest the descent and pitch for climb, then retract flaps incrementally—never all at once.
• Set a predetermined go-around point during your briefing. If you’re not on the mains by that spot, fly away—no in-the-moment debate.
• Most runway loss-of-control accidents were salvaged landings that should have been go-arounds seconds earlier.
• Practice go-arounds on purpose when nothing is wrong, so the skill is a reflex the day it actually counts.