Normal and crosswind takeoffs and landings, and the go-around

The candidate teaches normal and crosswind takeoffs and landings and the go-around from the right seat. At the end they can let a Student fly an approach that is going wrong, intervene at a point they named in advance, and teach the go-around as a decision rather than as a maneuver.

This is where the intervention threshold stops being a paragraph. In air work there are thousands of feet between a mistake and a consequence. In the pattern there are seconds, the candidate has to decide with their hands rather than with their judgment, and the decision has to have been made on the ground.

Everything else here the candidate has done since lesson 13. The content that is new is that they are now responsible for somebody else's landing, and the only tool they have that always works is the go-around.

Teach it as a decision with a trigger, not as a maneuver with a procedure. A Student who can fly a beautiful go-around and never chooses one has not learned it. The candidate's job is to install the trigger, and they cannot install a trigger they have not defined.

North Aero's stabilized approach criteria are school policy, not regulation (US-3.4), and the candidate teaches them as such:

On final, by 500 ft AGL: on centerline, on the intended glidepath, at the target airspeed with no more than a small correction in progress, in the landing configuration, and with the power setting steady. Any one of those missing at 500 ft AGL is a go-around.

A candidate who cannot say those six items from memory by the end of this lesson has not met the lesson. They will teach them for a career.

Element 10 is the underrated difficulty. The candidate's own landing sight picture from the right seat is still relatively new, and now they have to judge somebody else's from it. Expect the first few corrections to be late, and expect the candidate to notice that before you say it.

Per US-5.6, this lesson carries one, and program/PROGRAM-STRUCTURE.md names it.

The scenario: the balked landing. The Simulated Student flares high, floats, and does not go around. The candidate must call it and, if the call does not produce action, fly it. The go-around from the flare is the version that actually kills people, because it starts from low energy, low altitude, and a nose-high attitude with full flaps.

Brief that a simulated emergency is coming today. Not when.

Ground 48 minutes, flight 90 minutes. Reconciles with the declared 0.8 ground and 1.5 dual.

Ninety minutes of pattern work is roughly ten to twelve circuits. Plan for eight, so that the debrief is not competing with fuel.

Instructor: FAA-S-ACS-25 at Areas IV and VII. FAA-H-8083-3C. The airplane. The crosswind component chart or method for the airplane, and the current wind.

Candidate: headset, the flight manual for the airplane being flown, their written preflight ground lesson, the demonstrated crosswind component for that airplane from its own approved material.

Airplane: normal category, dual controls. A day with a crosswind, ideally one that requires a real correction and stays inside the demonstrated component. A calm day does not test elements 2 and 5 and should be recorded as such.

Cockpit recording: optional. Not one of the four P7 lessons. Worth recording anyway if the equipment is free, because landing sight picture discussions are much better with footage.

1. Get the six stabilized approach criteria said out loud in the brief, from memory. If the candidate reads them, have them close the paper and say them again.
2. Take the brief as a Student. Ask "how do I know when to flare?", which is the question nobody has a good answer to and everybody has to develop one for.
3. Grade the brief before the airplane.
4. Brief the threshold in the specific form this lesson needs: not "if it gets unsafe" but the listed triggers below, each of which the candidate can check in a second.
5. In part 2, take at least two landings yourself as demonstrations and narrate them. Element 4 is genuinely hard to describe and the candidate needs a model.
6. In part 3, fly approaches that are going wrong in ways that are recoverable. See the script. Do not manufacture an emergency in the flare on the first circuit.
7. Make the candidate call the go-around, out loud, before you do. The whole lesson is whether the call comes at the gate or after it.
8. Practice the exchange under load, in the pattern, in both directions. This batch is where ticket 35 requires it practiced rather than described.
9. Part 4, candidate first.

Simulated Student script notes

Not in the study guide.

1. Teach the preflight ground lesson on takeoffs, landings, and the go-around, including the six stabilized approach criteria from memory.
2. Demonstrate normal and crosswind takeoffs and landings from the right seat, narrating throughout.
3. Demonstrate a go-around, narrating, including the trim change.
4. Talk the Simulated Student through the pattern, calling the go-around at the gate.
5. Handle the balked landing from the flare.
6. Take the airplane at the threshold, out loud, three-way, at least twice, in the pattern.
7. Critique, self-critique, then listen.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate delivers the preflight ground lesson on takeoffs, landings, and the go-around, covering all seven items of the brief, and states the six stabilized approach criteria and the 500 ft AGL gate from memory.
2. The candidate flies normal and crosswind takeoffs and landings to commercial pilot tolerances from the right seat while narrating continuously, and does not go silent in the flare.
3. The candidate demonstrates a go-around, applying power, pitch, and configuration in that order, and names the trim change as it happens.
4. The candidate calls a go-around at or before the 500 ft AGL gate on an approach that does not meet the criteria, out loud, without prompting.
5. The candidate teaches the go-around as a decision with a trigger, and can state the trigger separately from the procedure.
6. The candidate intervenes on the balked landing within two seconds of the float continuing, either by directing the go-around or by taking the airplane.
7. The candidate corrects a crosswind takeoff roll before drift develops, rather than after.
8. The candidate takes the flight controls using the three-way exchange, out loud, in both directions, at least twice in the pattern, including at least once when the airplane was not offered.
9. The candidate delivers a critique naming the error, its probable cause, and the correction for at least two of the errors flown.
10. The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the instructor's.

Standard 4 is the lesson. Everything else here is flying the candidate can already do.

Falling short does not block lesson 35. No proficiency gate (Decision 9). It triggers policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md. A candidate who did not call the gate should fly this again before lesson 35, since short and soft field work has less margin, not more.

Verbatim in the study guide. Every trigger below is checkable in one second, on purpose.

The instructor takes the airplane when:

• The airplane is not on the runway centerline extended below 200 ft AGL.
• Airspeed reaches 1.1 Vso on final without correction applied.
• The airplane floats past the midpoint of the runway and no go-around has been started.
• The nose is pushed forward in the flare or in a balloon.
• Drift toward the runway edge on the takeoff roll is not arrested immediately.
• Bank exceeds 30 degrees below 500 ft AGL.
• A go-around is called and no power is applied within two seconds.
• Either pilot is unclear about who is flying the airplane.

Note what this list does not contain: the word "unsafe". In the pattern the candidate does not have time to evaluate a situation against a general standard. Each trigger above is a single observable fact, and the correct response to all of them is the same.

The go-around gate at 500 ft AGL is a teaching standard, not an intervention threshold. The candidate calls a go-around there. The instructor takes the airplane at the triggers above, which are later and lower. Keeping those two separate is deliberate: the candidate must have room to make the call themselves and to get it wrong once.

Positive exchange of controls, both directions, every time, and it is practiced under load in the pattern in this lesson rather than only described.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• FAA-S-ACS-25, tasks AI.VII.A, AI.VII.B, and AI.VII.N, in full. Write down the tolerances.
• FAA-H-8083-3C, the takeoffs and landings chapter, including both crosswind landing methods.
• standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md, addition 2.

Deliverable: Three things. First, write the preflight ground lesson you will teach on takeoffs, landings, and the go-around. This is one of your seventeen P3 plans, covering a normal takeoff and landing. Second, the demonstrated crosswind component for the airplane you will fly, from that airplane's own approved material. Third, memorize the six stabilized approach criteria and the gate. You will say them without reading them, and you will be teaching them for the rest of your career.

VS-34-1

Type: Exemplar | ACS task: AI.VII.B | Status: empty What it should show: a crosswind landing flown with one method applied consistently from short final through the rollout, narrated Reference Critique: not applicable for an Exemplar

VS-34-2

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.VII.B | Status: empty What it should show: an approach arriving at the gate fast and high, continued rather than abandoned, ending in a long float Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

VS-34-3

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.VII.N | Status: empty What it should show: a go-around with flaps retracted early and the trim-driven pitch-up unresisted Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

VS-34-4

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.VII.A | Status: empty What it should show: a crosswind takeoff roll with neutral ailerons, drift developing, corrected late Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

Tagged by ACS task. These serve every lesson touching AI.VII.A, AI.VII.B, and AI.VII.N.

This lesson is complete and deliverable whether or not its Video Slots are filled.

Count the go-around calls and note when each came relative to the gate. That is the whole assessment in one number. A candidate who called two of three, both slightly late, has a specific and fixable finding. A candidate who called none has a different lesson to fly.

Say the six criteria back to them at the debrief and ask which one was missing on each approach. It converts a vague sense that an approach was bad into the specific vocabulary they will teach with.

Expect late corrections in the flare and do not over-correct the candidate for them. The right-seat landing sight picture is still forming. What matters is whether they notice it themselves, which most do, and whether they keep instructing while they are unsure, which fewer do.

If the wind was calm, record that elements 2 and 5 were not tested. A crosswind lesson without a crosswind is a gap wearing a completed lesson's clothes.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-5.2, US-5.4, US-5.6
• ✓Carries ACS tasks and Part 61 references
• ✓Completion standards are observable behavior, naming flying tolerance and teaching quality
• ✓Common errors listed, each with the instructor's response
• ✓Intervention threshold stated as single-observable triggers actionable in the moment
• ✓Student preparation named, in the student half
• ✓FAA references verified current, 2026-08-13
• ✓Passes the design system check
• ✓Appears in the program structure and coverage matrix, hours reconciling
• ✓Both halves exist
• ✓Video Slots named and ACS-tagged, and the lesson states it is deliverable with them empty
• ✓Vocabulary matches CONTEXT.md
• ✓No em dashes, no POH performance numbers, no pricing
• ✓Falling short does not block progression (Decision 9)
• ✓Runs the four-part cycle from standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md
• ✓Positive exchange of controls practiced under load in the pattern, twice, not only described
• ✓Carries an emergency scenario, per US-5.6 and the program structure
• ✓School policy distinguished from regulation (US-3.4) on the stabilized approach criteria