I dont realy pay any attention to the slip indicater, I mostly bomb so i'm allmost always flying level, and gunning is almost non-existent, but the clipboard is a deffinent must, or you talking about when its down, or up, when your bombing, you deffinently need it up sometimes to tell which way you are going and where the target is. heck, i don't think i've ever seen any sim where there wasn't a map