I’m still finding that sometimes after “touchdown” I bounce, and then begin to porpoise. I’ve always done a go-around when this happens, uneventfully. However, I’m still at somewhat of a loss to understand what’s causing the bouncing. My approach speed is pretty consistently 80 knots. I suspect I’m flareing a little too early, always concerned about a nose-gear first landing. Carrying a little power on touch-down seems to help - I think. (Possibly it’s causing the problem, but I don’t think so - it appears that if anything, the bounce doesn’t seem to happen as often with a smidge of power.)
If you bounce, you’re either going too fast, or you’re dropping it in (can’t tell from the description if your bounce is due to hard landing or to excessive airspeed.)
A common mistake with high wing-loading airplanes is to start to round out to the flare too early. You simply do not have the excess lift that your 172 or Archer had to get away with this. What happens instead is that you develop a wicked sink rate and hit hard on the mains, and if you then bounce onto the nose gear you have accomplished what you set out to avoid.
I generally make my approach at 75 knots, power totally at idle, and wait until I can count the stones in the asphalt before flaring “with authority.” I then assume the position and wait; when the plane is done flying it will splat onto the runway and stay there. This approach isn’t for the faint of heart but does keep the float to a minimum while providing plenty of energy for the flare (though not much excess) and is good practice for dead-sticking it in. It’s also amazing how high you can be turning final and still land on the numbers with this technique. Once the power comes off and the plane bleeds off some energy, the nose drops down and the elevator ride begins!
A slightly less dramatic approach (which I do if I’ve got nervous passengers on board) is to carry some power into the flare, which makes the nose attitude a lot less dramatic and provides for a smoother transition into the flare. This may smooth things out for you by reducing your sink rate, but if you’re carrying 80 knots all the way down with power, you’re going to either have a wicked float, or you’ll set it down before it’s done flying, in which case you’ll bounce and balloon (and then stall it in.)
There are two critical bits to landing this plane. The first is to resist the urge to round out to the flare until you’re much closer to the ground than you are used to if you’ve been flying only light airplanes, as the early roundout will bleed off speed in a hurry, resulting in an arrival like a grand piano. The other is to find and hold the landing attitude. Compared to a 172, the plane feels much closer to the ground than it seems as though it should be, and the nose angle is not nearly as dramatic. Rather than pulling and pulling like a 172, find the attitude via sight picture, and then just hold that attitude. The plane will just drop on from there, and if you’re close to the ground you won’t hit very hard (or bounce.)
It’s really quite difficult to land this airplane on the nose gear, between the gear geometry, the sight picture (which makes you feel like the nose is lower than it is), and generous ground effect. My guess is that you’re too worried about the ground coming up, and then the sink rate develops and you don’t have enough elevator authority or energy left to arrest it.
Once you’ve gotten this down, you’ll find that 80 knots is really much too fast, as you’ll watch 1000 feet of runway disappear before touchdown, at which point you can start reducing your approach speed.
Hope this helps…