Paraffin

If you follow the guidelines in that "How to Fly in 3D cockpit mode" link (in the other thread here), you'll have your main hat switch set up like this:
 
general/up general/down general/right general/left   Then set one of your other buttons (or use the keyboard) to this:   view/chase   Hit that button for external Chase view, and the hat switch should pan horizontally and vertically around your aircraft at the center of the view.   Program another button pair for "general/forward" and "general/backward" to zoom in and out. And then one more button set to "view/3d_cockpit_cmnd_look" to return to the cockpit. You could also use "general/zoom_in" and "general/zoom_out" for this.   Using the hat switch this way won't interfere with the way it works in the 3D cockpit, as long as you're using the "general" views.   If you haven't figured it out already, when you go to the "Buttons Adv" tab on the Joystick and Equipment dialog, you can push a button on your joystick and it will show whatever the current programmed function is, or let you set a new function. It's easy once you get used to the interface.