Scythe pilots often have the problem that because their vertical thrusters don’t flip down, they can’t exactly tell when to initiate the reverse-thrust maneuver. We know of another helpful visual tell.

The Scythe is a special case when it comes to reverse maneuvering. Its vertical thrusters are immovable. In other words, they don’t flip into a vertical position when you are about to switch to hover mode like it is the case with the Reaver or the Mosquito.

As such, Scythe pilots are not able to tell when exactly to transition into reverse maneuvering merely by checking the position the vertical thrusters are in. That is no reason to despair, though, as there is another visual tell for the Scythe.

Contrails! Regardless of your graphics settings, your Scythe produces contrails from its wings when in flight mode, and none whatsoever when in hover mode. Let’s have a look at the following screenshots. You can’t miss it, the contrails I am talking about are seen as a white streak against the sky.

Ergo, as a rule of thumb for Scythe pilots, whenever you cut your forward momentum and the contrails from your wings cease to appear, you are good to start reverse maneuvering and jam your afterburner.

To further illustrate that, here is a pair of screenshots to round this short tutorial off:

For more on reverse maneuvering, I’d like to refer you to my extensive and further revised article Mastering the Reverse-Thrust Maneuvers.