enlarged external views

Sometimes, when flying, I go to an external view the aircraft takes up the whole of the screen. Is there anyway to reduce the visual image to a smaller size on the screen?

Here's what I do:

After loading a flight, I hit [ - next I hit s three times slooowly - and Backspace once.
Now I have a floating Window with exterior view. This Window can be dragged anywhere and resized by dragging its edges/corners. When this small Window is active, the w key will toggle between cockpit and exterior view.

Thanks,, I'll give it a go.

There's some combination of control, shift, and - (minus next to the = sign) that moves the spot viewpoint farther back. (Doesn't zoom out, but physically moves the viewpoint.) I think it's all of those, but I could be wrong... so CTRL+Shift+-, but I usually have to try a couple times to do it since I use it so rarely.