The Go-Around, the Moment Every Student Hesitates, and the Three-Step Sequence That Has to Be Automatic Before the Runway Gets Complicated

The go-around is one of the most important maneuvers in flight training and one of the most underemphasized. Students learn it early, demonstrate it for the examiner, and then training energy shifts back toward landing. But the go-around shows up when conditions change - on checkride day, at unfamiliar airports, and on busy weekends when traffic does not clear when you need it to. Owning this maneuver completely means both the procedure and the decision behind it.

Why Do Pilots Keep Going When They Should Go Around?

The logic of the go-around is clear: you go around any time continuing an approach creates more risk than stopping it. The execution of that decision in real life is harder.

By the time you reach final, you have been working toward that runway for miles. You set up the approach, made radio calls, configured the aircraft. You are mentally and emotionally committed to landing. The runway is growing in the windshield and everything in your brain says you are almost done.

That commitment is the problem.

The National Transportation Safety Board identifies a specific accident category that does not get enough attention in training: loss of control during the landing phase. Not at altitude. Not during slow flight practice. During the final moments of the approach, when the aircraft is close to the ground and something has gone wrong.

A pattern emerges in those reports. The pilot recognized a problem but continued. An unstabilized approach became a hard landing. A hard landing became a bounce. A bounce produced a nose-high attitude at low speed, and the pilot pushed forward trying to get back on the runway instead of going around. In case after case, the decision to go around came too late - or never came at all.

This is plan continuation bias: the tendency to keep executing a plan even when conditions have changed, because you are already invested in the outcome. Airline training programs devote significant time to this. Professional crews with thousands of hours have made fatal errors because they could not break away from a plan already in motion. If it happens to experienced professionals, it can happen to a student pilot on a Saturday afternoon.

What Does the ACS Require for a Go-Around?

For the Private Pilot certificate, the go-around is Task Four F in the Airman Certification Standards. The examiner evaluates your ability to:

• Make a timely decision
• Execute the proper procedure for your aircraft
• Achieve a positive rate of climb
• Configure the airplane correctly
• Return to the traffic pattern at the appropriate altitude

Notice what leads the list: a timely decision. Not perfect technique. Not textbook power application. The examiner wants to see that you recognized the need and acted promptly. That is a judgment skill. Everything that follows is execution - but judgment has to come first.

How Do I Execute the Go-Around Procedure Step by Step?

The sequence is three steps: power, attitude, configuration. Each step has details that matter close to the ground.

Step 1 - Power. Apply full power, and do it promptly. In a carbureted engine, that means carb heat to cold before advancing the throttle. Carb heat is set during the approach to prevent carburetor icing, but it also reduces power output. When you need full power for a go-around, you need cold air and maximum fuel flow. Cold first, then push.

Step 2 - Attitude. As power comes in, the nose wants to pitch up. Manage that pitch - do not fight it, do not exaggerate it. You want a climb attitude, not a chandelle. Think of the attitude you hold during a normal climb or a soft-field takeoff: positive but controlled.

Step 3 - Configuration. This is the step that causes the most trouble. If you pull full flaps all the way up at once, you lose a significant amount of lift close to the ground while flying slowly. The correct procedure in most training aircraft is to retract from full flaps to the first notch as an initial step. In a Cessna 172, that typically means going from 30 or 40 degrees down to 10 or 20 degrees, depending on your specific variant. As you establish a positive rate and climb away from the surface, continue retracting in stages.

Always verify your pilot operating handbook. Every aircraft specifies its own go-around procedure, but the principle holds across most trainers: configuration comes last, and it comes in stages.

Do not forget trim. The airplane is configured for an approach when you apply full power. If you do not adjust trim, you will be physically wrestling the aircraft to maintain attitude while still close to the ground. Trim for the climb as things stabilize.

What Should I Do After a Bounced Landing?

The bounce has its own accident profile and trips up a significant number of students.

You land. The touchdown is firmer than intended, or you flared slightly late, or a gust lifted you a foot just before the threshold. The airplane bounces back into the air at low altitude, low airspeed, with full flaps deployed.

If the bounce is minor and you are in a stable nose-low attitude with plenty of runway remaining, you may be able to salvage the landing. That window is narrow and closes fast.

If the bounce put you into a nose-high attitude, if you are close to stall angle of attack, if you have drifted off centerline, or if the runway is running out - go around immediately. Power, attitude, configuration. No hesitation.

The temptation after a bounce is to push the nose forward to drive the mains back onto the runway. Pushing forward aggressively at low altitude can collapse the nose gear or produce a violent pitch change you cannot recover. Neither outcome is better than a go-around.

The rule is simple: if the bounce puts you in any doubt, go around.

When Should I Set My Personal Go-Around Decision Gate?

Five hundred feet AGL is your stabilized approach gate. By that point, if you are not configured correctly, on your target airspeed, and tracking the extended centerline, you go around. Some instructors draw the hard line at 300 feet AGL. The specific altitude matters less than the commitment to it.

Brief it before every approach. It takes four seconds. Say to yourself: if I am not stable by 500 feet, I am going around. That pre-brief transforms the go-around from a reactive scramble into an anticipated option. You have already made the decision. The conditions just confirm it.

What Happens After I Initiate the Go-Around?

Once full power is in, climb attitude is established, and flaps are partially retracted, you have a positive rate of climb. Now you are rejoining the traffic pattern.

Climb to pattern altitude before turning. Do not turn crosswind at 200 feet above the ground because you feel like you should be turning somewhere. Climb, stabilize, communicate, then turn.

At a non-towered airport, make a radio call. Something like: “Riverside traffic, Cessna Three Four Seven, going around runway two seven, Riverside.” Short, clear, factual. Other pilots in the pattern need to know you are climbing instead of landing.

At a towered airport, you will receive instructions from the controller. Acknowledge them and fly what you were given. If something is unclear, ask.

One frequently missed point: you can go around from anywhere in the pattern. If you turn base and spacing is wrong, go around. If you are two miles out and see a vehicle on the runway, go around. The earlier the call, the more room you have to work with.

What Does the Checkride Examiner Look for on a Go-Around?

Examiners will either give a deliberate go-around exercise - such as a low approach with no landing - or set up a situation on final and simply watch what you do. A high-and-fast approach over the threshold. A balloon after an early flare. An approach where the profile is not working.

The applicants who beat the examiner to the call - who recognized the unstabilized approach and initiated the go-around themselves without being prompted - demonstrate aeronautical decision making. The ones who waited showed that the judgment is not yet fully theirs.

Your examiner is not trying to trick you. They are trying to see whether the decision belongs to you.

Before the oral, walk through your aircraft’s go-around procedure from memory. Know the airspeed you want to target, the initial flap retraction step, the power setting, and exactly what your POH specifies. The oral is not the place to approximate.

How Do I Build Go-Around Proficiency?

Low approaches are the best training tool. A low approach means flying the full approach to the runway environment and executing a go-around without touching down. You practice the maneuver for its own sake, not as a reaction to a bad approach. Ask your CFI to schedule low approaches as a regular part of pattern work - not just when something falls apart.

Chair-fly the sequence at home. Sit down, close your eyes, and walk through it: carb heat cold, full throttle, climb attitude, flaps from full to partial, trim, positive rate, continue flap retraction, communicate, rejoin the pattern. Do this until it is boring. When you need it in the airplane, boring is exactly what you want the task to feel like.

Every time you go around, you are making a correct decision - every single time, regardless of how it feels. The pilot who calls the go-around, comes back around, and lands cleanly the second time demonstrated exactly the judgment that keeps pilots flying for a long time.

Key Takeaways

• The go-around is a tool and a skill, not a punishment or a failure. Treat it as a normal, anticipated option on every approach.
• The three-step sequence is power, attitude, then configuration - in that order. In carbureted aircraft, carb heat to cold before advancing the throttle.
• Retract flaps in stages, never all at once from full, to avoid losing lift close to the ground.
• Set a stabilized approach gate at 500 feet AGL. Brief it before every approach. If you are not stable by that point, you are going around.
• On the checkride, the examiner is looking for timely judgment first, correct execution second. Beat them to the call.