TLDR: Get a better view out of the cockpit while flying keyboard, especially with fighters.
Background
So when I'm flying, especially bubble canopy planes, e.g., fighters, I tend to struggle with the views they present me when looking around from the keyboard (Shift-1 through Shift-9 with the exception of Shift-5). The view is angled down towards the instruments in the cockpit, but that's too low for looking outside. Especially in a bubble canopy plane you want to use the unobstructed view towards the horizon. But also in tranditional cockpits, when looking outside you want to look up from your instruments and get a glance of the runway when turning final, for instance.
What this does
For this I've created an XML file to amend the operation of the keypad keys, so they update not only the view heading but also the view pitch. The update of the pitch depends on the mode the improvement is in. In full mode, suitable for bubble canopy airplanes, the pitch is updated so to give the best view towards the horizon, while in simple mode the pitch is lifted half way up from the instruments.
How to install
In the launcher go to the settings panel and scroll down to 'Additional Settings'. There you can define parameters for Flightgear to use. Add this line to it:
--config=<path>improved_view.xml
where <path> is the path on your file system where you stored the XML file.
How to activate
When loaded this XML file will try to guess the kind of model you're flying. In case of the precense of a 'figther' tag, the full view angle improvement is enabled. Otherwise the simple view angle improvement, suitable for 'normal' cockpits, is enabled. If you want to switch modes you can do so from the View menu.
I don't see a difference
It may be subtle to spot when flying level, but once the bank angle increases, the difference becomes noticable. Go make a 45 degrees level turn in a fighter and look left and right. The result in both modes differ considerably. For a 'normal' cockpit the change will indeed be limited, but that is more due to the model than the pitch angle.
Exactly what is different
A picture may be helpful here. Although busy, the lines help to point things out.
Black: Horizon
Red: View X-axis
Blue: View Y-axis
Green: View Z-axis
The white lines illustrate the views forward towards the cockpit instruments, and the view turned outside. Before the downward angle of the view was retained when looking around, so in this case looking left points to the ground too much and looking right looks into the sky too much.
The blue arcs show where the 'ideal' view should be, and the yellow lines form the center of that. This is what the full mode does, determine that angle and adjust the view pitch according to it.
Even though this is a gross simplification of things, it aims to get the point across.
Can you show the difference
Here's a demo flight with an F-16. Be sure to enable the subtitles for the commentary.
Was this tested
I've tried various airplanes with and without bubble canopies to see how this change affected the
views of these models: F-16, F-15, C172, A-10, B777, B757 and Seneca II.
I don't like it
You're free to not use it, that is your choice. Just remove the config line added during install and everything is back to normal.
I like it
You're free to use it as you please. I've attached to GPLv2 license to it, as the rest of the project, so you know what to do.