hehe, we have to come back to the roots of beeing in air… 
not so long ago airplanes could only stay in air if a real human was sitting inside controling it.
Their view sitting behind the engine was the main view they had and this was looking form backward into the propeller.
If you are having your model infront of you looking down to your motor. it truly sounds unreal why the hell did someone flipped arround the directions. But its where things belongs to in this case. The brave man was sitting in his seat starring infront of his propeller out of the sky.Even if this makes our world alittle wired 