Marty Shapiro writes:

No more so than the hood of a car extends beyond the front window. You
can't see the ground immediately in front of you, but you can see the
ground in front of you.

How much of the runway can you see from the cockpit?

The instrument panel is only imposing when you are not a pilot.

Pilots must be extremely tall, then.

After a while, it is no more imposing than the "instrument
panel" in your car. Even when you are on an IFR flight, if the weather
conditions are VMC, you've got to look out of the window. You also have to
be able to see in front of you to taxi to the runway.

At the viewing angles I see for small craft (particular those that
don't sit level on the ground), it should be practically impossible to
see much of the runway.

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