In gmax, you can easily gmax has the "hide unselected" command, so you can select several parts, right-click and "hide unselected" leaving you to be able to work with certain parts.

You can do the same thing in FSDS, selecting a group of parts, either by selecting from the parts list, etc., then inverting selection, and then hiding the selection.

With the remaining parts you can then CTRL-H to toggle VIEW current part on and off.

HOWEVER, if you then want to hide/unhide one of the other parts that you're working with, you then run the risk of unhiding ALL parts...

I can, however, COPY the group of parts that I want to work on, add another model (MAIN or INACTIVE), and paste the group of parts there.  That way I can hide/unhide to my heart's delight without risking unhiding all parts.  When finished, if I want, I can copy back the parts to the main MAIN model...