It can feel frustrating when your landings aren't as smooth as you'd like them to be. Here are 5 of the most common reasons why your landings aren't consistently smooth.

1) Chasing The Power

You should only be making small power adjustments once you're on final approach. If you're chasing the power with large changes, you probably aren't stabilized. It might be time to go-around and try again.

2) Fast On Final

If you only land on long runways, you might not realize how much of an impact coming in too fast has on your landing performance. Make sure you fly your plane's published final approach speed, so you can flare without floating and touchdown at the spot you chose.

Pro tip: POH speeds are usually published for the aircraft's maximum gross weight. If you're significantly lighter than max gross weight, take a few knots off the published speed.

3) High Flare

You probably remember the times you've flared too high above the runway. Just when you thought your wheels were about to touch, the stall horn continued to go off as your plane dropped a few feet toward the runway. One embarrassingly hard landing later, you wondered what went wrong.

Commonly caused by visual illusions like a wider-than-normal runway, flaring too high above the runway is usually a fixable situation. Stop increasing your flare pitch and let the airplane re-settle to the ground by maintaining a constant attitude. Add some power if necessary. If you're too high and can't fix the flare, go around.

4) Floating

Excessive airspeed on flare leads to floating. Caused in large part by ground effect and wingtip vortices, you've probably had quite a few landings with a little too much float. When floating, gradually adjust pitch to settle the airplane down as airspeed bleeds off. Before you land, pick a go-around point somewhere down the runway. If you're not on the ground and braking before that point, go around.

5) Drifting Or Crabbing On Touchdown

As you begin your round-out and flare, your plane slows down, which also means your flight controls are less effective. Because your flight controls are less effective, you need to add more rudder to keep your nose aligned with the runway, and at the same time add more aileron to keep yourself from drifting off the centerline.

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