Originally Posted by
250 or point 65
I honestly believe that you're over thinking this. After seeing a bunch of good landings and having a bad one under a slightly different scenario, it would be very easy to look at the scenario and blame that. Throw in your embarrassment and it would be even easier.
So you had a bad landing. It happens. Its unfortunate that it happened with passengers, but even airline pilots bounce one in every once in a while. You're not flying a jet that is much more weight sensitive, its just a small plane. Just relax and do better next time. The more you think about how to do stuff differently under minimally different circumstances, the more you're going to screw up a technique that you seem to have down quite well.
I'd say just keep on keepin on. If the next couple times you go up with a heavy load the same bad landing happens, then maybe its a systematic problem, but don't go changing everything just because of one bad landing.
This thought went through my mind. The only concern I had was of safety of my passengers. I was initially shocked by making such a bad landing after having made some great ones. I know that I got the technique right and it has nothing to do with my inability to make a nice flaring. Things just got a little out of hand. This was my first time with passengers and I think I was not concentrating as hard. It is a good lesson for me to fly the airplane and concentrate very hard especially during the landing. I should not be distracted by my passengers. I admit, I was trying to show off a little because the approach was just amazing, coming in by the shore and making a 30 degree turn to final. I was just mesmarized by all this (and thought of how mesmarized my passengers were) and simply forgot to do something very critical. Never again!!