Just like to post some thoughts here that occured whilst reading this thread. Firstly, that even if tightly strapped in, it is still possible to move your head from side to side and to rotate it to look somewhat behind you over the shoulder. Combine this with the very small canopy of the bf109, (and the Spitfire's cockpit and canopy were only very slightly bigger) and that alone would have afforded a fairly good all round view, IMHO. In fact, why were spitfires fitted early on with 'blown' canopies at all? Following the logic of some posters here it would have been a complete waste of time and effort, something the British didn't have much of in 1940. I have used headtracking in the past and think that this gives a much more realistic view from the cockpit (when it worked!), than the rigid pov permitted by the on stick hat switch. I didn't find the "holes" that much of a problem, and for 109's at least these were fixed early on by the modders. See Hauptmann Phillips on the Russian front sitting in his 109, at 20+ seconds: