Not literally 
Many sims - FS2004 and X-Plane for example (I don’t think you could do it in FSX ?) had a view where they got rid of the plane. X-Plane has a HUD, FS2004 the dials at the bottom of the screen, which is really good for sightseeing.
Is there a way of doing this in MSFS ? It would be fair easy to do, as it’d be the same as the external view with the instruments round the side, but without the back view of the plane.
From the camera menu, go to “SHOWCASE” and select the free camera drone. Make sure that “follow aircraft” is turned of. Congratulations, you can now roam around freely.
WASD key: move the drone horizontally
R / F key: move the drone vertically
arrow keys on numpad (2, 4, 6, 8): yaw / pitch view
Or did I not understand you correctly?
I think what he’s asking for is a view like third person view, just without the plane in the middle of it. I concur with this request as well.
Ah, my bad. What I want is rather like the mode when you have the plane as a complete model in front of you and the instruments round the edge of the display … without the plane. As if you were sitting in the front of an aircraft with nothing in front of you.
Ah, I see. Have you tried moving the drone just right in front of the windshield?
I might be completlely stuck here.
FSX had this. I miss this way of flying too.
Is there a suggestion box ? (It’s not a bug) as this is probably literally ten minutes work. You could make it an option in the setup.
This is a feature that’s been wished for by home cockpit builders but is conspicuously missing from MSFS at this point in time.