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Going Around

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • A go-around is a normal, binary outcome of an approach, not a failure, and pilots must be prepared to make a decisive and timely decision to execute it without hesitation.
  • The immediate actions during a go-around involve applying power to stop the descent and coordinating pitch control to establish a climb, while managing trim and rudder for directional stability.
  • Subsequent steps include incrementally retracting flaps and then landing gear according to manufacturer recommendations, followed by assessing the reason for the go-around and planning the next course of action.
See a mistake? Contact us.

It basically doesn’t matter why you need to discard your visual landing approach and go around. It could be something as routine as another airplane or a vehicle on the runway, a poorly flown approach or configuration error, or a controller’s direction in response to something you can’t even see. But go around you shall, and you “suddenly” have a whole new task to perform, an airplane to reconfigure and a low-speed, high-power maneuver to fly. Did we mention you’re close to the ground?

We put suddenly in scare quotes above because there’s no reason you should be surprised by the need to go around. A landing approach has two outcomes: a successful landing or a go-around. (Supposedly, there’s a third outcome—bending the airplane—but that’s what we’re trying to avoid.) It’s a binary thing, and there’s absolutely no reason to be surprised the thing you desired most isn’t going to happen right away. Let’s look at the sequence of events.

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