Don't do it in Escorts.
Don't do it in Science.
Don't do it in BoPs.
Don't do it in Raptors.
Don't do it in Battle Cruisers.
Don't even do it in Carriers.

But for some reason, I almost always fly around in circles to the left with Cruisers in PvP.

I don't do it in PvE, but in PvP - yeah, subconsciously I always seem to fly around in circles to the left...

Anybody else experience anything odd like this - managed to overcome it?

Yeah, that's cos you're using beams and you want to hit people from the side anyway.

And your focus is generally healing, so you don't have to maneuver much.

If you're running a Carrier, you generally are moving in a circuit anyway since you can't adjust much movement without slowing yourself down which is generally bad anyway.

And if I'm getting focused, I move and get closer to my teammates or get on top of the the escorts so he has to spiral to get to me.

Yeah, but I don't always want it to be the same side.

I think about the way I lay plasma in PvE - it's pornographic the way I can make a Cruiser dance there. I completely forget how to fly it in PvP and just lean left...

Flying an Escort, I don't even think about how I'm moving - it's like a trance. I'm focused on everything else I'm doing.

That's missing when I fly Cruisers - I'm focused on stuff just like another boat, but there's no second nature movement going on... unless I consider the LTO crap to be the second nature movement, meh.

Perhaps it's as simple as you say, I know that for the most part I want to be broadside. Everything else, I'm trying to keep them in the front - whether it's torps/DHCs on a BC or Bill Nye stuff on a Carrier.

Just going to have to make the extra effort to sometimes go right - pay better attention to when I should go left or I should go right - sort of thing.

It's pretty easy to set up the ambush/focus fire on the guy that always turns one way...meh.

lol, yeah i hate this.

When I'm thinking of what to do next in most other games, I tend to turn on auto pilot, running laps around the city or town I'm in, or if it's a 2D platformer, I start jumping over deadly holes.

I've noticed that I turn right when I'm in space, against every target. But when PvP happens I generally just go forward as my mouse hand goes into panic mode and starts turning every direction long enough to counter which direction I was just going.

Its Formula 1! Not Indycar or NASCAR. When shall people learn

Has your helmsman had his V8? If not that could be it. That or your pretending to be some form of space shark.

Cheer up a friend of mine flys BACKWARDS in a straight line while firing his cannons

Hey now, the F-1 threads are over in the PvE section for the people that can't wait until they have their 1000 Qpix.