It’s still true that I mainly flightsim in one of the following cockpit views reported in my Post 181.

1. Landing/Takeoff — showing the hood from the pilot seat on the left
2. Cruising — showing outside scenery only
3. Normal Cockpit — used only when FIPs are turned off

To implement the Cruising View, in particular, I used to disable the 2D-Cockpit in the camera.cfg first, and then create a specific CameraDefinition for it.    Recently, I found Prepar3D has a hidden feature which makes this customization process totally unnecessary as shown in the video below:

Two steps only are required:

1. Press [F10] to enter the 2D-Cockpit view
2. Press [Shift+1] twice  (quick or slow, doesn’t matter)

Now users can pan to any angle, left or right, up or down, without being blocked by the aircraft body at all.

To revert the action, just press [Shift+1] again.

Do note that all subpanels under 2D-Cockpit view must be closed first.

In addition, the 2D-Cockpit view must be in the EXACT CENTER in order to activate the feature via the key combo.  This can be ensured by pressing [Ctrl+Space] to Reset the Eyepoint.

Actually, this feature can be activated via any key combos from SHIFT + 1 through 9 as well, as long as they are assigned to any subpanel.

Unfortunately, this trick applies to P3D only.