there's a special dev server client that exists somewhere in the main site...
problem is it's only open for very short moments of time. I got lucky because I noticed that Phlydaily was doing a live stream playing on the Dev server.
Here's a thread about how to do it.
http://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/214997-how-to-access-the-development-server/There's 2 ways to do it and I did the way immediately above the video in red text.
This also means I need to figure out how to publish my Replays that I want to keep soon... before 1.47 happens. I don't have the hardware to do it though ;w;
Also I realized why only a few aircraft have the ability to open the canopy: They're not dealing with the canopies that don't slide back because if you opened a canopy that isn't just a slide-type in mid flight, things could break.