Noname ESF manuever

I agree that is kind of like a reverse maneuver, but it's NOT a reverse maneuver. Variations that do different things need to be given new names otherwise "do a reverse maneuver" becomes generic and useless for training purposes.

If we look at what he is doing, it could be called a Conic Roll, or possibly a Thrust Roll. This maneuver might still be possible, but since the nerf it probably requires fully certed AB tanks to do.

Nope, it's not the standard reverse manuever mainly because it doesn't reverse you nor gives you any backwards momentum.
I suggest watching the recording first at 5:30

Apologies yes, that's more a roll manuever.

You are missing one of the two ingredients I posted: pitch down. If you do not pitch down, the reverse maneuver is impossible. You can vary the amount as necessary, but it always is necessary. Two ingredients: hover/AB and pitch down. That's it.

Why not call it the Rolling thrust manoeuvre ?

Or the "Washing Machine"

I don't know if this has an exact name per se. but I call it a defensive roll.

You can absolutely still do this. It requires a bit of experience so you have a good feel for when and where your trusters flip. If you are having issues with performing this then most likely you are not applying enough downward pitch (continously, but small amount) throughout the entire manouver. As with all manouvers that use afterburner you will go out of hovermode unless you apply at least some downward pitch while afterburning throughout the whole thing. Exactly how much is required is something you have to learn through experience. The reverse manuver is easier because using maximum down-pitch through the whole thing is an essential part of it. In this roll maouver you don't want more than a minimum to maintain hover-mode, and thus you need more control.

While this can have some use in dogfighting too I think of it primarily as a method for dodging incomming fire (generally non-flak) from the ground while being able to shoot back continously. Flak will usually catch you anyway, so it's not good against that. The reason it is more limited in dogfighting is because you have to keep a somewhat limited set of movement to keep the roll going plus the fact that aiming while doing this roll is a challange even for top tier pilots - thus mostly stationary (ground) targets are the most ideally suitable for it as it both makes aiming bit more achievable and also won't present a need to potentially abort the roll in order to keep track of your target.

Even with pratice you will trade off a good deal of accuracy for the defensive roll, but it can be well worth it in some cases. If you think of a dual basilisk sunderer trying to fire back as you buy yourself enough time to dump several magazines of ammo into it - that's about the most ideal situation for it. The roll will make most average gunners only hit you a fraction as much as if you were hovering or doing a ground-strafe - and with enough practice you can still retain maybe 70-80% of your normal accuracy.

I'd say it's worth learning for high-tier pilots, but only after you have mastered many other more essential skills - as at the end of the day this skill is fairly situational (non-flak and non-lockon situations that allow you to hang around to use this to full effect are somewhat rare these days - at least on my server of Miller).

PS: It is possible to do a defensive corkscrew-roll too (usually in the backwards direction) which makes you even harder to predict and to branch into it from a standard reverse manouver (but it will more or less require AB pods nowadays with the hard nerfs to the stock afterburner).

-Stigma

Yeah, the maneuver is still possible, it's just somewhat tricky to get right. I would call it side maneuver ...

A lot of people gave good tips. I have some of my own, before I became much more consistent with it and not losing hover during it.

1) Start looking above parallel. It's much easier to lose hover if you look downwards in the beginning.
2) First try without afterburners. Just try to do full 360 side aiming at some point. Don't try to be precise, your main task is to not lose hover. Use a lot of downward pitch, but then less and less until you have your aim on target. Always play with speed, rolling slowly is harder than rolling fast. Don't forget to use Yaw keys.
3) Now do 2) with afterburners.

Make sure you pressed Analogue throttle and are moving sideways before Side maneuver.
Also - 1st person is times easier for me for some reason.
Whatever the usefulness - learning it makes you a better pilot.

Well, I suppose that means that you have successfully done this before posting those messages...
So I'm just gonnah get back to my VR exercises
I've seen some good tips here as well but one problem remains unsolved...
-The name.
I'm not Spadar but, because I can't ask him about it, I think I'll just name this manuever Sidewinder...Or something more descriptive...The Hardcore Sidewinder of Death...Yeah, fits perfectly.

Note: No copyright violation intended. The trademark "SpadarFaar(R)" and any manuever names such as "The Hardcore Sidewinder of Death(R)" belong to SpadarFaar.

Sidewinder= Reverse + Roll. Nothing special guys comon. ...

Well, this guy modified an actual maneuver called the immelman turn. Instead of righting the aircraft at the top of the turn he started inverted and used thrusters to scoot sideways during the turn. I use this technique quite frequently to do a 180 while slowing down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immelmann_turn