[X-Plane] new player - Difficulty seeing out the window in 3D cockpit view. Any attempts to change the viewing angle/orientation keep getting reset to the default.

Edit: Solution so far has been to modify the Standard/Viewpoints/View/Screen-Centers/"view center Y,panel view" value in PlaneMaker (down from 0,600 to 0,400 for the Cessna). I admit I have no idea what that does.

Apologies for the stupid question, but I'm having difficulty seeing in the 3D cockpit view.

TL;DR: the panel is taking up too much of the valuable viewing real-estate, and my attempts to change the view keep getting reset after I use the view joystick.

Firstly, I'm using a xbox360 controller (no snark please) which works surprisingly well. The left stick is used for controls, and the right stick is used for viewing (a poor man's TrackIR if you will).

When I start up (initial view), I first have to "raise the seat" to even see the runway properly (hitting the general/up button). Then, I "raise my chin" (general/rot_up) to get a better view. No problem, right?

Wrong. I can use the viewing joystick to look around, but the moment the joystick returns to "neutral" it resets my viewing angles (back to this). Ugh.

But it gets weirder. The "raised seat" part is kept, but the "chin rotation" is reset. WAT.

Questions: Why does the general/{rot_up/rot_down} changes get reset, but not the general/{up/down/left/right}? Is there a way to tell X-Plane where I want my view to return to once my view joystick goes "neutral"? Is there a place to set my default viewing orientation?

I'm using a 1920x1200 monitor using default settings, except the LOD is set to 75 degrees (it's the vertical spacing that's killing me though). For argument sake, I'm using the 172 for testing.

Thank you for reading.