AINsight: You Can (and Should) Always Go Around

There is a song earworming its way through my brain, and the line that just won’t go away is: “You can always go around.” Ken Dravis’ song “Go Around” was released in 2003 on the album “Flying: Home To You” and accurately captures not only what goes on in a pilot’s mind on final approach but also that feeling we’ve all probably had, where our instructor is sitting on our shoulder telling us what to do.

The subject of go-arounds is on my mind not only because every year we seem to lose more pilots crashing after a go-around attempt but also due to the discussion about unstable approaches. The advice to go around if an approach continues to be unstable is good, but from the accident record, it’s clear that go-arounds aren’t always conducted properly.

So this made me wonder about how we’re teaching go-arounds.

“Go-around” is mentioned 41 times in the FAA’s private pilot airman certification standards (ACS) document, which guides instructors and flight examiners in what needs to be tested during check rides.

Here’s what the ACS wants pilots to do: “Execute a timely go-around if the approach cannot be made within the tolerances specified above or for any other condition that may result in an unsafe approach or landing.” There is a whole section outlining what pilots should know about go-arounds and how they should be flown. Clearly, the FAA considers this an important maneuver.

Yet think back to your training. How much of an emphasis was placed on learning how to properly fly a go-around? Did you practice a lot of these, or was the go-around just an occasional maneuver from a comfortable altitude? What about go-arounds close to the ground, or from various places in the traffic pattern, or just before crossing the runway threshold?

Go-arounds might be needed in many different circumstances, and we should practice the maneuver in a variety of configurations and places around the airport, in high and low density altitudes, and in all sorts of wind conditions. 

I don’t recall much of an emphasis on go-arounds when I learned to fly, but then again, my instructor seemed more focused on having fun than teaching. Nevertheless, I was luckily able to spend a lot of time practicing on my own as I had a line boy job at the airport and access to the fleet after work. I would take one of the airplanes and fly only in the traffic pattern. With no other traffic, I could try a variety of maneuvers, from cutting the power at different points in the pattern to see if I could glide to the runway to evaluating different flap settings to, yes, going around, over and over. That I was working at the airport to pay for the flight time certainly helped, but then again, airplane rental was cheaper then.

However, despite all that practice, my first experience with a necessary go-around wasn’t that great. I was flying into a narrow-runway airport to pick someone up, so I was focused on the mission. On my first landing attempt, I was way too fast on final and kept thinking I could make the landing if I just kept focusing on getting the airplane onto the runway. Probably more than halfway along the runway and still with the wheels not touching the ground, I finally gave in and did a go-around, and it’s a good thing I did. The airplane never would have stopped by the end of the relatively short runway, and the result would have been some serious damage. 

Another experience had more to do with busting minimums, but again I talked myself into continuing when I should have made the go-around decision much sooner.

Thankfully, I executed the go-arounds safely, which—from looking at accident records—isn’t always the case. In some of these accidents, it’s clear that the pilot just does not want to go around, and that when forced to execute the maneuver, they are not ready, fail to handle it properly, and end up crashing. 

This should not be happening. A go-around should be just like any other practiced maneuver: done safely to maintain safety. It shouldn’t be a last-ditch attempt to prevent disaster but a successful way to prevent the possibility of disaster.

Thinking more about this made me realize that perhaps we’re teaching pilots all wrong. We start out with some maneuvering, then quickly move into landings, which involve a huge amount of changing dynamic variables that often confuse and confound new pilots. Learning to land combines so many different aspects of flying that maybe we should rethink our approach.

What if we taught go-arounds first? 

After practicing the four fundamentals of turns, climbs, descents, and straight-and-level flight, why not introduce the go-around from day 1? Instead of showing students a landing the first time, let’s show them a successful go-around right away, then land after that. 

This comports well with the one thing that I remember from my fundamentals of flight instruction study: the law of primacy, or the idea that what you learn first sticks with you. If we demonstrate and teach the go-around before the landing, the new pilot will remember that and will treat the go-around as a normal maneuver and not an emergency that is difficult or challenging.

If I were teaching a primary student today, I would start with the go-around, coaching the student on the proper glidepath, getting them used to what final approach should look like, and working our way closer and closer to the ground, followed by a go-around each time, well before teaching landings. Once the student gets used to flying to near the runway and going around, adding the landing to this should be a simple matter. 

Hopefully, this will prevent my student from ending up in a situation, like in Ken Dravis’ song: “And all I could think of was, I was setting myself up to ungraciously dismantle this perfectly good little airplane…If it don’t look right comin’ down, Don’t wait until you’re sideways maybe slidin’ on the ground. You can always go around.”