NORDO on Downwind, Truck on the Runway
You are a CFI in the right seat of a C172 on a three-mile final to runway 18 at a non-towered airport (field elevation 800 ft, traffic pattern 1,800 ft MSL). The ASOS says wind 150° at 5 knots. A Cherokee ahead of you is turning base, and a Bonanza has just announced, "taking runway 18 for departure, left crosswind departure." At 1.5 miles you see a NORDO Luscombe enter a left downwind and turn inside the Cherokee's base leg. Then the Bonanza announces "rolling," and a pickup truck with no radio drives onto the runway from the taxiway. Your student is on the controls. He has 12 hours, has never flown a go-around, and is at 700 ft AGL slowing toward 65 knots with flaps at 30°. The runway is 3,200 ft with no parallel taxiway, and another aircraft is behind you on final.
1. What do you do in the next 20 seconds, and what is the reasoning?
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Go around. The runway environment is compromised twice over - a vehicle on the pavement and a departing airplane still on or near the runway - and there is an aircraft turning inside your final that you have not sequenced with.
Actions:
- Announce "going around" and take positive control if he has not already acted; say "I have the controls" if you take them.
- Full power, carburetor heat cold, establish the climb attitude, and hold the centerline heading. Flaps to 20°, then 10° once a positive rate is confirmed and obstacles are cleared.
- Transmit: "Cessna XXX going around runway 18, climbing, will re-enter left downwind."
- Climb straight ahead or slightly to the side of the runway, and do not turn into the Luscombe's path.
- Re-enter the pattern only when you know where every aircraft is and the runway is clear.
Do not sidestep and try to land - you would be adding a nonstandard maneuver to a traffic conflict. The landing is the least important thing happening. This is also your student's first go-around; narrate it as a normal, expected maneuver, not a failure.
2. Which right-of-way rules apply here, and what do you teach about the radio?
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Under §91.113, an aircraft on final approach to land has the right of way over other aircraft in flight or operating on the surface - so the Bonanza should not have rolled. For converging aircraft at the same altitude, the aircraft to the right has the right of way, but no right-of-way rule gives anyone priority over an aircraft on final, and none of it relieves anyone of the duty to see and avoid.
The teaching points:
- The radio is information, not control. At a non-towered field, no clearance exists; listening and announcing reduces risk but does not clear the runway. The final authority is what you see out the windshield.
- Scan out and in. Look for the NORDO aircraft, the vehicle, and the traffic behind you on final, not just ahead.
- Announce for yourself, not for compliance: 10, 5, and 3 miles, on each leg, and before any runway entry.
- NORDO traffic is legal traffic. It is why you fly a standard pattern, enter at a 45° to the downwind at pattern altitude, and overfly an unfamiliar field at least 500 ft above pattern altitude before descending.
Finish with the point that a go-around is a pre-briefed maneuver, not an improvisation - brief the criteria before every takeoff.
3. How do you handle the debrief and the next two flights?
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Debrief in a structured way: ask him what he saw and when, what he would have done, then walk the timeline - Cherokee on base, Luscombe turning inside it, Bonanza rolling, truck on the runway. Credit anything he noticed; then make the point that the safest action was available the entire time and cost nothing but a few minutes.
The critique should land on one theme: go-around criteria are decided before takeoff, not in the flare. "If the runway is not clearly clear, if an aircraft is on final ahead and not sequenced, or if I am not stabilized by 300 ft, we go around." Have him state the criteria before each takeoff from now on.
Next flights: two or three deliberate go-arounds from different points - short final, over the threshold, and one from a simulated conflict on downwind - so the maneuver becomes routine and his first real one is not his first one. Log the training and note the go-around as completed training, not as a failed landing. He should leave understanding that the go-around was the correct outcome of the approach.