Estimating Height and Movement Roundout During the approach, roundout, and touchdown, vi- sion is of prime importance. To provide a wide scope  of vision and to foster good judgment of height  and movement, your head should assume a natural,  straight-ahead position. Your visual focus should not  be fixed on any one side or any one spot ahead of the  powered parachute, but should be changing slowly  from a point just over the powered parachute’s nose - wheel to the desired touchdown zone and back again,  while maintaining a deliberate awareness of distance  from either side of the runway within your periph- eral field of vision. Accurate estimation of distance  is, besides being a matter of practice, dependent upon  how clearly objects are seen; it requires that vision be  focused properly for the important objects to stand out  as clearly as possible. Speed blurs objects at close range. For example, con - sider the view from an automobile moving at high  speed. Nearby objects seem to merge together in a  blur, while objects farther away stand out clearly. The  driver subconsciously focuses the eyes sufficiently far  ahead of the automobile to see objects distinctly. In  the same way, the distance at which the powered para- chute pilot’s vision is focused is normally adjusted  automatically. If you attempt to focus on a reference that is too close  or look directly down, the reference will become  blurred, and the reaction will be either too abrupt or  too late. In this case, your tendency will be to over- control, round out high, and make drop-in landings.  When you focus too far ahead, accuracy in judging  the closeness of the ground is lost and the consequent  reaction will be too slow since there will not appear  to be a necessity for action. This will result in flying  into the ground without flaring. The powered roundout is a slow, smooth transition  from a normal approach descent rate to a landing de- scent rate, gradually rounding out the flightpath to  one that is parallel with, and within a very few inches  above the runway. When the powered parachute is in  a normal descent, within what appears to be 10 to 20  feet above the ground, the powered roundout should  be started. Once started, it should be a continuous pro- cess until the powered parachute touches down on the  ground. As the powered parachute reaches a height above  the ground where a timely change can be made into  the proper landing descent, power should be gradu- ally applied to slowly decrease the rate of descent. [Figure 11-3] The rate at which the roundout is executed depends  on the powered parachute’s height above the ground  and the rate of descent. A roundout started excessively  high must be executed more slowly than one from a  lower height to allow the powered parachute to de- scend to the ground. The rate of rounding out must  also be proportionate to the rate of closure with the  11-3 Figure 11-2. Effect of headwind on final approach. 