Okay, here's a comment from our flightsim community. Some of the oldtimers of AH might actually recognize him; "Skidrow" Kim is a long time aviation enthusiast and an AH player, used to fly way back in WB2 and AH1, with other great Korean pilots such as raomi "Rraf" and "feed".
Skidrow It seems to me that it's a variation of a snaproll, which "kazi" once asked me about with 190s. This maneuver is already well known in the remote-control planes or acrobatic planes circles, and not an uncommon thing to witness.
The "pattern" of stall the plane falls under greatly differs according to which way you kick the rudder, or how you fiddle with the stick, and all such maneuvering is collectively referred to as "snap roll". A sort of a controlled spin, if you will.
RC planes or airshow planes are generally much more responsive than warplanes, and therefore it may be easier for the controllers or pilots to handle the plane under such a stall. The above accounts (accounts of D. Bryan and R. Candelaria) can be an example why it is more uncommon to expect such maneuvering in warplanes. It's probably due to the difficulty (and unpredictability) of the maneuvering that this certain "maneuver" never became a part of more or less 'orthodox' ACM.
The link below explains how such a maneuver is done with RC planes:
Hobby Info website link (*links to a Korean webpage. I'm sure the non-Korean speaking folk would still immediately relate the pictures that depict the RC contol and RC plane motion, with actual stick maneuvering in real-life planes)
I notice that Captain Bryan's AAR on the HTC forums also mention that he used a 'snap roll'. If I may add a bit, I think Widewing's maneuvering (as shown in the film) could be related to pure snap rolls, but dtango's "flat plate" seems to be a bit different.
A snap roll usually initiates an uncontrollable roll which rolls the plane a lot faster than normal aielron rolls (hence, the name 'snap roll'), but dtango's "flat plate" seems to be a cross between the 'snap roll' and an extreme barrel roll.
A snap roll may look very different according to how it is initiated, but the end result is always the same: with full stick and rudder input, the plane goes over the normal flight envelope.
This Youtube video, is from an RC simulation where you plug in the RC controls to your PC. It depicts two different forms of snap rolls.
And
this Youtube video is of an actual aerobatics plane demonstrating snap rolls. Around 00:37 is a "negative snap roll", and 2:20 a "positive snap roll".
