Actually the hog and the mastercheif both respond to input while in mid-air. They do so at a very slow rate so most of the time it is not noticeable and it is even less noticable in the hog because of the higer rate of speed the hog travels at. It is worth experimenting with though because on the occasion when you go off the jump wrong and you land in such a way that your hog is just barely wanting to roll over, that samll amount of influence you give it in the air can make the difference between rolling it and keeping it on all fours. The best thing to do is to experiment with and learn how to correctly go off jumps. The angle you leave the ground, the speed you are going at and whether or not you are accelerating or decelerating at the moment you leave the groud all have a bigger impact on what the hog does while in the air than any input you have while in the air.
An easy way to experiment with this is to go get dev mod and practice jumping off the bridge (basically the entire map) of gephyrophobia with not hurt from falls and deathless player on. You fall long enough to see how the hog itself reacts to the camera angle and the wheels moving, which are both variables in how the hog reacts while in midair. Of course this isn't going to happen mid race, but it is a good way to experiment with it. Sometimes I get me and my friends and we have bumpercars on the bottom of the map, its really fun, because once you flip out you fall straight down
The effect of the hog leveling out while going over the ramp in Danger Canyon is a well known phenomenon that has nothing to do with mid-air input and everything to do with an invisable structure left in the map by the designers. I don't know if it was intentional or not but there is what is refered to as the "invisable ramp" in the middle of Danger Canyon that only seems to interfere with hog flight when you are jumping the ramp on the way to red base and mostly when you leave the ramp facing slightly to the right of center. You can avoid this ramp simply by doing, as said above, controling where and how you go off the ramp. We can describe these things all day long but the only real way to get them down is to practice them for yourself...so get to it.
You can actually use the invisible ramp to your advantage on your way to red base. From stunting experience the ramp takes up roughly half of that side of the ramp (the right side, closest to the center tower), and continues out to become perpendicular to the side of the pipe facing the ramp. The invisible part is just big enough to park roughly a hog and walking room (figuratively speaking, you can't actually walk on it
). If you can drive your hog towards the right side and get most or all of the hog on it, your hog will level out in midair and will guarantee you land if you're not getting shot at/naded at in midair. If there is no way of hitting the ramp, what I try to do is spin a little bit before launching (similar to coming out of the second base nav at timberland), which usually helps. It may add seconds to your time, but it's better than flipping over and getting back in.
