The Go-Around, the Decision Students Delay Too Long, and the Mental Commitment That Has to Be Made Before You Ever Cross the Threshold

The go-around is the most underused safety tool in a student pilot’s arsenal - and the one most often delayed past the point where it matters. Executed correctly, it prevents runway overruns, bounced landings, and loss of control. The pilots who use it well have made the decision before they ever taxi onto the runway.

Why Do Student Pilots Wait Too Long to Go Around?

Three overlapping psychological forces push pilots to continue a bad approach.

The first is plan continuation bias. Once the brain commits to a plan - landing on this runway, on this approach - it resists abandoning that plan even when the evidence argues against it. This isn’t a student pilot problem specifically; it’s a human factors problem documented in commercial aviation accident investigations. Professional crews have flown serviceable aircraft into terrain because of it.

The second is the belief that a go-around signals failure. Students often arrive with the idea that every approach should end in a landing, and that going around means something went wrong with them personally. That framing is incorrect. A go-around is a correct decision. It is exactly what the airplane and the procedure exist to support. On a checkride, the examiner doesn’t score a go-around as a failure - they score how the applicant manages it.

The third is sunk cost on final. The pattern is already flown. The aircraft is configured. The runway is visible. The mental energy required to abandon all of that and climb back to pattern altitude feels disproportionate - even though the actual time cost is roughly ninety seconds.

None of these are valid reasons to continue an unstable approach. Stacked together, they are how accidents happen.

When Should You Decide to Go Around?

The go-around decision is not made on final approach. It is made on the ground before the flight begins.

Effective pilots establish a personal list of conditions that automatically trigger a go-around - decided in advance, when workload is low and judgment is uncompromised. When one of those conditions appears in the air, the decision is already made. There is nothing left to deliberate.

That list should include, at minimum:

• Not stabilized by 500 feet AGL. If airspeed, configuration, descent rate, and alignment are not established by 500 feet above ground level, go around. This is the industry standard used in professional aviation and adapted for general aviation training. Some operators set the gate at 300 feet AGL. The exact altitude matters less than drawing the line before you cross it.
• Significant airspeed deviation over the threshold. More than 10 knots fast over the numbers on a short-field landing means you are consuming runway. Go around.
• Runway incursion. Any aircraft, vehicle, or wildlife on or near the runway. No assessment, no waiting to see if it clears. Go around immediately.
• Unexpected wind shear or gust. If airspeed fluctuates significantly on short final and confidence in the wind is lost, go around.
• Floating in the flare with diminishing runway. Trying to force an aircraft onto the ground too late and too fast is a primary cause of runway overruns and hard bounces with loss of control. If the landing isn’t going to happen cleanly, go around.
• Gut feeling. If something feels wrong and you can’t immediately identify what it is, go around. The issue can be sorted from pattern altitude. It cannot be sorted from 50 feet on a deteriorating approach.

How Do You Execute a Go-Around Correctly?

The FAA Airman Certification Standards for the private pilot checkride define what examiners look for: timely decision-making, proper power and pitch attitude, a positive climb established, and the correct configuration change sequence. Here is that sequence.

1. Say it out loud. The moment you decide, verbalize it: “Going around.” This isn’t for aerodynamic effect. Verbalizing a decision under high workload commits you to it and interrupts the hesitation loop that might otherwise keep your hand on the throttle and your brain still negotiating.

2. Apply full throttle - smoothly but without delay. On carbureted engines, turn carb heat off before or simultaneously with the throttle advance. Carb heat reduces available power. Students conditioned to apply carb heat during descent sometimes forget to reset it on the go-around, costing performance at the worst possible moment.

3. Establish a positive climb attitude. In most training aircraft, that is approximately 10 to 15 degrees nose-high. Do not wait for airspeed to increase before raising the nose. The power is going in - trust it.

4. Retract flaps in stages, not all at once. This is where sequencing errors cause accidents. Retracting from full flaps to zero in a single pull at low airspeed can cause the aircraft to sink before the wings can compensate for the lost lift. In the Cessna 172, the standard sequence is: retract to 10 degrees, establish a positive climb, then retract gradually to zero as airspeed increases. Yanking all flaps up at 50 feet above the ground introduces a hazard rather than eliminating one.

5. Retractable gear: gear up after positive rate of climb is confirmed. Follow aircraft-specific procedures. The checklist is authoritative.

6. Communicate. At a towered airport: “Cessna Two Seven Bravo, going around.” Short and clear - tower needs to know you are climbing and must sequence traffic behind you. At an uncontrolled field, announce on the CTAF: “Riverside traffic, Cessna Two Seven Bravo, going around runway two-four, Riverside.”

7. Fly the pattern. Fix the problem. Rejoin traffic flow, set up the approach again, and correct the specific issue from the previous attempt. A high and fast approach means starting the descent earlier. A wind correction not held means establishing the crab or slip sooner and maintaining it. Repeating the same approach expecting a different result is its own kind of error.

What Is the Examiner Watching on a Checkride Go-Around?

Examiners may deliberately create the scenario - either allowing a marginally unstabilized approach to develop, or announcing simulated runway traffic - specifically to observe the applicant’s response.

They are evaluating four things:

• Timeliness. The decision happens before the landing becomes unsafe, not after.
• Coordination of power and pitch. Power application and attitude change should be near-simultaneous. A pause between the two is a deficiency.
• Flap retraction sequence. Yanking flaps to zero in one motion is a common error that will be noted.
• Directional control. Full power on most training aircraft produces significant left-turning tendency and torque. Right rudder input is required immediately to maintain runway heading. Students who forget this will see the nose yaw left as power comes in - directly in front of any traffic on the runway they just abandoned.

Additionally, examiners watch for altitude awareness throughout. A brief pause in the descent as power builds is acceptable. Any continued descent after full power is applied is not.

How Can You Build Go-Around Confidence Before the Checkride?

Practice the maneuver when nothing has gone wrong.

Fly a stable, normal approach, cross the threshold, and execute a go-around anyway. Repeat this until the sequence - throttle, attitude, flaps in stages, communicate, pattern - is automatic. The maneuver should feel routine. It should not feel like an emergency response to a crisis.

Airlines execute rejected landings regularly. Cargo crews go around in low visibility as standard practice. Military pilots wave off from carrier approaches as a matter of course. The stigma attached to go-arounds exists almost exclusively in the mindset of student pilots who have not yet separated the outcome of a flight from the appearance of performing well. Safety is the goal. The landing will still be there after you go around.

The AOPA Air Safety Institute has documented this pattern across years of accident review data. Runway overruns, loss of control on landing, and gear-up landings on distracted approaches share a common thread: a moment where a go-around would have changed the outcome, and a pilot who didn’t take it.

Key Takeaways

• The go-around is a normal procedure, not an emergency - and not a failure. Examiners evaluate execution, not the decision itself.
• Plan continuation bias, perceived failure, and sunk cost are the three psychological forces that cause pilots to delay the go-around too long.
• Pre-decide your go-around triggers - especially not stabilized by 500 feet AGL - before the flight, when workload is low and judgment is clear.
• The correct sequence is: full throttle, climb attitude, staged flap retraction, communicate, fly the pattern.
• Right rudder is required immediately on power application to counter left-turning tendency. Forgetting this is one of the most common execution errors.
• Practice go-arounds from stable approaches to build muscle memory before the checkride.