Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Speed All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
Flight Crew Executed Go Around / Missed Approach
Human Factors
We were on a visual approach to runway XYC at ZZZ. We were told to maintain 180 KIAS and contact tower at the FAF. About 2 miles before reaching the FAF; we were configured with only flaps 20 and became distracted by a Traffic Alert that looked very conflicting to our approach path. Once we contacted tower; we were advised of the helicopter traffic that was transitioning; and we finally were able to get a visual on the helicopter. However; I (pilot flying) made no attempt to continue configuring the airplane for landing during that time we were focused on the traffic alert. As we reached 1;000 feet AGL; I asked for the gear down and flaps 30. At 900 feet we were still at slowing from 170 KIAS with the gear still in transition and only flaps 30.I initiated the go-around and smoothly transitioned into a climb. At this point; tower was instructing us to turn right to a 220 heading and maintain 4;000 feet. I was hand flying (a mistake; in hindsight); and the First Officer (FO) was setting up the Flight Control Panel (FCP) for those parameters; all the while; never announcing a 'positive rate' call due to task saturation. At this point I called for the gear up and we were at approximately 200 KIAS with a positive trend vector. Due to the speed; our nose gear did not retract; so it was followed by a 'Gear Disagree' warning message. Our speed was approximately 210 KIAS. As soon as we slowed to 200 KIAS; the gear retracted and the message went away.We then continued back to ZZZ with a normal approach to landing.The event was primarily caused by a distraction at a critical phase of the approach.There is one factor that is normal for operations in ZZZ: a high speed assignment with a small window of time allowed to configure prior to 1;000 AGL. The coup de grace was the traffic alert at the most critical part of the approach; and my inattention to flying the airplane; but rather focusing on locating the traffic.There are two parts to my suggestions for preventing this situation.First; during the approach; I should have focused on flying; while delegating the FO to look for that traffic; being aware that in ZZZ; you only have about 800 feet to slow from 180 KIAS to and fully configured and final approach speed. Secondly; during the go around; I should have queried the gear up when the FO--who was already task saturated--forgot the 'positive rate' call.It is my VERY STRONG suggestion for management to change the 'positive rate' call to the Pilot Flying (as it used to be). Missing it by a task saturated Pilot Monitoring may have a tendency to snowball into further missed items.
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CRJ-200 flight crew reported a go-around due to a late approach configuration while they looked for helicopter traffic.