A view entity is a model that is placed directly before the camera.
The difference is that you have to model and texture it by yourself(i have never seen a cockpit model for sell)
You have to write a function to keep it before the camera while the ship is moving.(that is not too hard compared to all the vector math that lays ahead of you when you gonna make a spacegame )

the advantege compared to a panel is: it feels more realistic (you could realise head moving maybe to look out of a sidewindow as i mentioned before)
You could use shaders on them what could make them looking really good.