Folks, currently the most realistic view to play driving simulations is sitting in a real car surrounded by monitors, or a big screen with multiple beamers projecting the picture around you.
Debating about what is realistic on a 19 inch monitor is quite... controversial, because right now there's no way to have a realistic 1:1 view in LFS. It would be quite close, if we used cockpit camera and set the FOV to about 30°, so the most you'd see from the cockpit would be a little stripe on the lower bit of the screen. Pretty much any view we can use is wrong, because the FOV is off by huge amounts on each one. Moving the camera forward in cockpit so you just see the hood? Unrealistic. Turning off the cockpit? The same. Using bumper cam? Even more so. Using chase cam? Let's not talk about this.
Now, setting aside the FOV issue, there's nothing to debate - the cockpit view is clearly the most realistic. But I have to agree with Blowtus here, Gunn, you're mixing objectivity with subjectivity. Defining what is realistic is rather objective, because you can do scientific research and testing on it. But you can't simply say what is more immersive, as it is different for each person - it's a 100% subjective thing. It would be like saying the colour green looks better than the colour blue. Or oranges taste better than apples.
Blowtus might aswell be more immersed by using a bumper cam. You won't believe it, but there are even alot of people who feel immersion when playing an ISI sim, whereas for me it feels like playing an unrealistic hovercraft sim with the default wheel FF effects you can try out in the control panel. Each to his own.