Target visibility

[Wolf_Rider]

The better thing to do is, perhaps; forget about wide angled FoV altogether (because as mentioned before in threads were this has come up, all it does is alter the field of depth.
The flyer there sits looking a screen and it doesn't come into account how close or distant that flyers sits at his screen, the image doesn't enlarge or reduce accordingly... the flyer just closer to/ further away from the screen.
In effect the screen is a window, a window of fixed size regardless of resolution.
That window opens onto the virtual world of the sim and that world is always only going to be relative the the screen, the window. It doesn't matter if the flyer moves closer to or further away from the screen, the virtual world doesn't expand or get closer/ further away... it all remains relative.
In effect, it is almost a tunnel type vision, not literally, but it called be called exactly that - tunnel vision.
Peripheral vision, which is really what detects movement, can't be modelled with today's technology.
The sim, is a 3 dimensional presenation on a 2 dimension screen... even with a 3D screen - because it is still drawn on a 2 dimension screen.
Game developers open with a FoV which, they, feel gives the better visual representation of the virtual world/ cockpit, etc, so that the product "looks right" in relation to the screen ie the Depth of Field... remember, everything ties back to the screen - the window... the cockpit, the other objects, the background, etc and what the flyer sees on his screen

Now, when selecting to go with a wider angle FoV... what happens?
well, the screen doesn't get wider or larger and the flyer doesn't move closer or further away.
What happens is; a wider part of the virtual world is fitted to the screen - the window, that same size window... so naturally, the depth of field is altered and because there is a larger image fitted to the screen of fixed size, everything in a way gets compressed to the scsreen, but because the cockpit, the other objects, the background etc are all still relative to each other in effect and without actually doing so everything gets pushed back.)

Changing the FoV only changes the depth of field.
A good headtracker and properly calibrated monitor, along with zoom (although some may consider zoom cheating, in fact zoom is the only thing really which could compensate for lack of peripheral vision/ depth of field limitations) would go far better for target/ plane spotting.