The Go-Around, the Stabilized Approach Criteria That Define When to Call It, and the Psychological Trap That Makes This the Most Underused Safety Tool in a Student Pilot's Kit

The go-around is not a failure. It is a decision - one that airline captains, military pilots, and test pilots make routinely. Understanding when to call it, how to execute it, and why pilots resist it is one of the most important things a student pilot can learn before their checkride.

What Is a Go-Around and Why Do Pilots Avoid It?

A go-around, also called a rejected landing, is a maneuver every private pilot applicant must demonstrate. The concept is straightforward: you’re on approach, something isn’t right, and you choose to climb away instead of land.

The difficulty isn’t mechanical. It’s psychological. Continuation bias is the cognitive tendency to press forward with a plan even when the situation has changed and that plan no longer makes sense. On final approach, it sounds like: I’m already configured. I’m too committed. I’ll just make it work.

The insidious part is that continuation bias usually pays off. The unstabilized approach becomes a passable landing. The crosswind that was a little much becomes a story about a firm arrival. The pilot walks away, the behavior is reinforced, and the lesson learned is the wrong one - until it isn’t.

The NTSB has documented this pattern repeatedly. Landing accidents involving runway excursions, hard landings, and controlled flight into unsuitable conditions at the runway end represent a significant share of general aviation accidents each year. A notable portion of them involve a pilot who recognized something was wrong on final and continued anyway.

What Is a Stabilized Approach and When Should You Go Around?

A stabilized approach means that by a defined point - called a gate - every parameter is within acceptable limits: airspeed on target, descent rate manageable, aircraft configured correctly, aligned with the runway, power appropriate, glidepath on track. If you are not stabilized at that gate and trending toward stability, the correct call is to go around.

In commercial airline operations, the standard gate is 1,000 feet AGL in instrument conditions and 500 feet AGL in visual conditions. If the approach isn’t stabilized at that gate, company procedure requires a go-around - no discussion.

For general aviation and the private pilot checkride, the concept is identical even if the numbers aren’t as formally defined. The Airman Certification Standards (ACS) uses the phrase “timely decision,” and that word carries significant weight. Timely means you chose to go around. The runway didn’t run out. You made the call before the aircraft made it for you.

How Do You Execute a Go-Around in a Cessna 172?

The following procedure applies to a Cessna 172 configured with full flaps (40 degrees), which is common for landing in primary training. Always confirm your specific aircraft’s Pilot’s Operating Handbook (POH) procedure.

Step 1 - Power. Apply full throttle, smoothly but promptly. Not halfway, not tentatively - full power. Simultaneously, if at a towered airport, transmit “going around” on tower frequency. At an uncontrolled field, announce position and intentions on the CTAF. This communication is required by the ACS, not optional.

Step 2 - Pitch attitude. As power comes in, the aircraft wants to pitch up aggressively. Manage that with back pressure, but keep the nose from going sky-high. The goal is a positive climb attitude with airspeed climbing, not decaying.

Step 3 - Flaps (incremental retraction). Forty degrees of flaps generates significant drag and prevents an effective climb. However, retracting all flaps at once removes the lift they were generating, and the aircraft may settle back toward the runway. The Cessna POH specifies 10 degrees at a time: confirm positive rate of climb, confirm obstacle clearance, retract one notch. Climb. Confirm. Retract again. Climb. Confirm. Retract to zero. The sequence matters.

Step 4 - Directional control. Full power introduces torque and P-factor that want to yaw the aircraft left. Apply right rudder, keep the ball centered, and track the runway centerline until you have altitude and clearance to transition to crosswind. Task saturation during the flap sequence is where students most commonly lose directional control. Flying the aircraft is always the primary task.

Step 5 - Trim. As configuration and airspeed stabilize, trim to reduce control pressure. You should be flying, not fighting the aircraft.

Step 6 - Re-enter the pattern. At a towered airport, comply with ATC instructions. If no instructions have been issued, ask. At an uncontrolled field, announce position and intentions and re-enter the pattern appropriately.

Carburetor heat note: If your aircraft uses carb heat and you had it on during approach, it comes off as part of go-around initiation - essentially simultaneous with applying full power. Carb heat reduces engine output, and you need full power during a go-around. This detail trips up a significant number of students on checkrides.

What Does the ACS Require for the Go-Around?

The FAA Airman Certification Standards for the private pilot certificate covers the go-around across three areas:

Knowledge: The applicant must understand the elements of a go-around and rejected landing, including the importance of a timely decision, appropriate airspeed and configuration, and proper communication.

Risk management: The ACS explicitly calls out the hazard of delaying the go-around decision. This language is deliberate - judgment and decision-making carry equal weight to physical execution in the examiner’s evaluation.

Skills: The ACS requires the applicant to make a timely decision to discontinue the approach, apply takeoff power immediately and transition to climb pitch attitude, configure the aircraft correctly and in sequence, maintain centerline, climb at the appropriate airspeed, comply with noise abatement procedures where applicable, and re-enter the pattern or comply with ATC.

Hard tolerances: plus or minus 10 degrees of heading and airspeed within 10 knots of the climb airspeed specified in the POH.

What Are the Most Common Go-Around Mistakes on Checkrides?

Delayed decision. The student sees the approach deteriorating but doesn’t call the go-around until 50 to 100 feet above the threshold. At that altitude the maneuver becomes rushed and compressed. At 500 feet with a bad picture, the go-around is smooth. At 50 feet, it’s a scramble.

Slow or tentative power application. Moving the throttle forward like it might upset the aircraft. A Lycoming or Continental is designed for this. Move smoothly to full power and trust the procedure.

Full flap retraction at once. The student reaches for the flap lever and yanks it all the way up. The aircraft settles. Suddenly they’re lower than they were two seconds ago. Ten degrees at a time.

Abandoning directional control. Heads-down managing flaps while the ball flops to one side and the nose wanders off centerline. The flap handle is secondary. The airplane always comes first.

Missing the radio call. “Going around” at a towered airport is a requirement. At an uncontrolled field, announce position and intentions. A silent go-around leaves everyone else in the pattern without information about where you are.

What Is the Examiner Actually Looking For?

A designated pilot examiner is not hoping to see you fail. They are looking for evidence of a safe, thinking pilot. Specifically, they want to see that you’re continuously monitoring the approach, assessing it honestly, and that when the situation calls for a go-around, you make that call without hesitation - and without being prompted.

Some examiners construct scenarios where a go-around is the obviously correct answer and then wait to see what you do. A student who calls the go-around confidently, at the right moment, and executes it cleanly is demonstrating aeronautical decision-making - the ability to fly and think simultaneously.

Examiners who fail students on go-arounds are almost never failing them on mechanics. They’re failing students who needed to be prompted, who made the decision so late that the maneuver became a scramble, or who were so determined not to go around that they pushed through an approach that had no business continuing.

How Do You Handle a Low, Late Go-Around?

Not every go-around is triggered by an unstabilized approach. A go-around may also be required because of another aircraft that hasn’t cleared, a vehicle on the pavement, or wildlife on the runway. The FAA wildlife strike database contains thousands of reports involving ground-level encounters - this is not a theoretical scenario.

In this situation the go-around may initiate much lower than you’d prefer. The technique is identical, but the margin is compressed. The most critical thing in a low, late go-around is to resist the urge to pull back aggressively. A steep pitch-up attitude with full power and high flap configuration in a light piston aircraft can produce a dangerous aerodynamic situation very quickly. Keep the pitch attitude positive but reasonable, keep the airspeed flying, and climb out. Resist the panic input.

How Do You Build Better Go-Around Habits?

Practice it on its own merits. Ask your instructor to build a dedicated lesson around multiple approaches and go-arounds without ever touching down. Fly the approach, call the go-around, execute it, re-enter the pattern, repeat. Build muscle memory. Build the callout habit. Make it something your hands and voice know how to do.

Brief it before every flight. Before you taxi out, make a specific commitment: “If I am not stabilized by 200 feet on this approach, I am going around.” That mental commitment changes how you monitor the approach during it.

Remove the emotional charge. The go-around is a procedure - not a mulligan, not an admission of failure. Airlines execute them. Airbus captains with 20,000 hours execute them. If the approach isn’t right, you go around.

A useful heuristic: if you’re asking yourself whether you should go around, you’ve already answered the question. The mental bandwidth required to debate it is usually a sign that something is off.

Key Takeaways

• Continuation bias is the primary reason pilots push through bad approaches - most of the time it works, which makes the habit dangerous
• A stabilized approach gate exists for every approach; if you’re not on parameters and trending toward them, go around
• In a Cessna 172, retract flaps 10 degrees at a time during a go-around - never all at once
• The ACS tolerances are ±10 degrees of heading and within 10 knots of published climb airspeed
• Examiners evaluate decision-making and timing as much as physical execution; a late or prompted go-around can fail a checkride even if the mechanics are clean