Narrative:

I was going to go solo and my instructor and I went through all of our preflight preparations together. He signed off for solo and went through the preflight walkaround with me. After I started the engine; I checked my radios and called for taxi. The wind was variable at 5 KTS; favoring runway xx at ZZZ. I taxied down and did my normal run-up. A king air landed on runway xy and took till the end to stop. We talked and we decided to have me pull out and around so he could taxi off. We did so with no problem and I lined up to take off. I took off and went around the traffic pattern and came in for my first landing of the day. This was not my first solo; but it was my first solo in over 90 days; so I needed a new endorsement. I came in and made a good approach and I went to flare the aircraft. I flared a bit early and had too much speed; so I started to balloon up. I pushed forward to bring the nose down and I realized that was wrong but it was too late. I came down nose first and bounced off the nose gear and then the mains several times and lost direction of the airplane. I ran off the runway into the grass between the runway and the taxiway then back up to the taxiway. I stopped the aircraft and returned to the ramp. My instructor and I looked over the aircraft to see if there was any damage. I did not hit any lights or the drains in the median; and I did not strike the propeller on anything. There was no damage to the aircraft or to the runway or taxiway. I think what caused the problem was that I tried to nose the airplane back to the runway and I built up speed and bounced and lost control. I am a student pilot and I need to practice much more before I try to solo again.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A C172 student pilot lost control in the landing phase when he pushed over too far in correcting a balloon; resulting in a nose wheel landing.

Narrative: I was going to go solo and my Instructor and I went through all of our preflight preparations together. He signed off for solo and went through the preflight walkaround with me. After I started the engine; I checked my radios and called for taxi. The wind was variable at 5 KTS; favoring Runway XX at ZZZ. I taxied down and did my normal run-up. A King Air landed on Runway XY and took till the end to stop. We talked and we decided to have me pull out and around so he could taxi off. We did so with no problem and I lined up to take off. I took off and went around the traffic pattern and came in for my first landing of the day. This was not my first solo; but it was my first solo in over 90 days; so I needed a new endorsement. I came in and made a good approach and I went to flare the aircraft. I flared a bit early and had too much speed; so I started to balloon up. I pushed forward to bring the nose down and I realized that was wrong but it was too late. I came down nose first and bounced off the nose gear and then the mains several times and lost direction of the airplane. I ran off the runway into the grass between the runway and the taxiway then back up to the taxiway. I stopped the aircraft and returned to the ramp. My Instructor and I looked over the aircraft to see if there was any damage. I did not hit any lights or the drains in the median; and I did not strike the propeller on anything. There was no damage to the aircraft or to the runway or taxiway. I think what caused the problem was that I tried to nose the airplane back to the runway and I built up speed and bounced and lost control. I am a student pilot and I need to practice much more before I try to solo again.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.