The Go-Around, the Balked Landing, and Committing to the Miss When Oshkosh Tower Sends You Around

A go-around is the decision to stop trying to land and go fly the airplane instead, executed in three actions in a fixed order: power, pitch, configuration. It is not a failed landing - it is the escape hatch that prevents forced landings, bounces, and prop strikes. The hardest part is not the flying; it is making the decision early and committing to it every time.

What Is a Go-Around and Why Does It Matter?

A go-around - also called a balked landing or rejected landing - is what you do when a landing isn’t working: too fast, too high, too long, drifting sideways, or ballooning back into the air. Instead of salvaging it, you add power and leave.

Both the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have pointed to the same pattern for years. A pilot presses a landing that isn’t working, tries to force the airplane onto the runway, and ends up in a bounce, a porpoise, or running out of pavement. The decision that should have been made three seconds earlier now gets made for them.

The go-around is your escape hatch - and escape hatches only save you if you use them before you need them.

How Do You Fly a Go-Around Step by Step?

In a typical trainer like a Cessna 172 or a Piper Cherokee, a go-around is three actions in a specific order: power, pitch, configuration. Say it out loud until it’s automatic.

Step 1 - Power. Smoothly but positively bring the throttle to full power. Not a stab, not a slam - a deliberate push to the firewall. You’re about to ask the airplane to stop descending and start climbing, and it needs energy to do that.

Step 2 - Pitch. As power comes in, the nose will want to rise, often a lot, because the airplane is trimmed nose-up for a slow approach. Pitch to a climb attitude and hold it there. Expect to push forward on the yoke - sometimes hard - because the airplane is badly out of trim. If you let the nose climb unchecked, you can end up slow, nose-high, low, and behind the power curve, which is genuinely dangerous. Hold the attitude with muscle first; fix the trim in a moment.

Step 3 - Configuration. Clean up in stages. Don’t dump all the flaps at once. As you establish the climb, retract the flaps in increments per your Pilot’s Operating Handbook (POH) - get the first big notch up to reduce drag, let the airplane accelerate and climb, then milk the rest up as airspeed builds. If you have retractable gear: positive rate, gear up, once you’re clearly climbing. Somewhere in there, retrim, because the pressure you’re holding is fatiguing and it steals your attention.

Only after power, pitch, and configuration do you worry about the radio and where you’re going next. Fly the airplane first - it comes before the microphone, every time.

What Does the Examiner Look For on a Checkride?

The go-around is its own task in the Airman Certification Standards (ACS), and the examiner is looking for specific things:

• A timely decision to go around - not after you’ve bounced twice.
• Smooth application of full power.
• Control of both pitch and yaw. Full power in a single-engine trainer produces yaw; if your feet are asleep, the nose swings. In a typical American engine, that means right rudder and coordinated flight.
• Flap retraction in the correct sequence at a safe airspeed, without ballooning.
• The manufacturer’s recommended climb speed, usually plus or minus 5 knots at the private level and tighter at commercial.
• A sidestep to the side of the runway so you can see the traffic you’re going around for and aren’t flying directly over an airplane on the pavement.

The most common mistake isn’t an inability to fly the maneuver - it’s waiting too long to start it and then fixating on salvaging the botched landing. By the time these pilots commit, they’re low, slow, and rattled. The examiner wants a pilot who was already thinking about the go-around before they needed it.

When Should I Decide to Go Around?

Decide before you get there. On every approach, brief yourself out loud and state your go-around trigger before short final:

• “If I’m not stabilized by 500 feet, I go around.”
• “If I float past my touchdown zone, I go around.”
• “If it doesn’t feel right, I go around.”

When you say the trigger before you reach it, you’ve already made the decision. You’re no longer negotiating with the little voice in your gut that says I’m almost down, I can save this. That voice is the problem - good pilots learn to overrule it early and calmly, every single time.

What Counts as a Stabilized Approach?

For a light trainer flying a normal approach, stabilized roughly means:

• You’re on the correct final approach path.
• You’re at target airspeed - around 1.3 times your stall speed in the landing configuration, per your handbook and instructor.
• You’re in the landing configuration.
• Your descent rate is under control - not diving, not dragging it in with power.
• Only small corrections are needed to hold it.

If you’re fighting the airplane down final - chasing airspeed, chasing the centerline, riding the power all over the place - that is not stabilized. That is a go-around trying to happen.

How Is a Go-Around Different at Oshkosh AirVenture?

This week, with roughly half a million people and much of the aviation world at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the controllers in that tower are the busiest air traffic controllers on the planet. They pack airplanes onto the runway nose to tail, and when spacing collapses, they send you around. That’s not a failure - that’s the system working.

The AirVenture arrival follows a Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) roughly 32 pages long, published by the FAA and EAA. The whole procedure is built around one idea: controllers sequence you visually and fit airplanes onto the runway with spacing that makes a normal towered field look lazy. They’ll assign you a specific colored dot to land on - the green dot, the pink dot - and slot another airplane behind you before you’ve cleared.

Here’s the special part: at AirVenture, the controller may tell you exactly how to fly your go-around, because there could be an airplane right below you and traffic all around. They’ll say “go around” and then give you a direction - fly runway heading, sidestep to a specific side, follow the airplane ahead. They may ask you to rock your wings to acknowledge, because on the arrival they’re often talking to you without you replying.

The discipline is the same as your checkride, turned up to eleven. Fly the airplane first - power, pitch, configuration - then listen, because the controller may hand you a specific plan. Don’t freelance and don’t turn the way you feel like turning. In that traffic density, everyone doing the published thing is what keeps metal apart.

How Do I Practice Go-Arounds?

Build the habit while the stakes are low. Next time you’re up with your instructor - or solo in the pattern if you’re signed off - don’t wait for a reason:

1. Fly a normal, stable approach.
2. At about 200 feet, go around on purpose.
3. Feel how much forward pressure you need. Feel the yaw and get on that rudder.
4. Practice the flap sequence until your hands know it without thinking.
5. Do three or four in a row. Make it boring.

Boring is exactly what you want it to be at 300 feet on a busy final.

A go-around is never wasted money. Every hour on the Hobbs meter costs real money, and the temptation to just get it down and not burn another ten minutes around the pattern is real. But a go-around is the cheapest insurance in aviation. The most expensive thing you’ll ever do is force a landing that wasn’t working - ask anyone who has repaired a firewall, a prop strike, or worse. Going around costs a few dollars and a few minutes; the alternative can cost the airplane and a whole lot more.

Key Takeaways

• A go-around is three actions in order: power, pitch, configuration - fly the airplane before you touch the radio.
• The hardest part is the decision; brief your go-around trigger out loud before short final so you’re not negotiating with your gut.
• If you’re not stabilized (on path, at ~1.3× stall speed, configured, descent controlled, only small corrections), go around.
• Checkride examiners want a timely decision, full power, controlled pitch and yaw (right rudder), a proper flap sequence, and a sidestep.
• At AirVenture Oshkosh, tower-issued go-arounds are routine and may come with specific instructions - follow the published plan exactly, don’t freelance.