I don't think the default Freespace engine had those vertical and lateral thruster controls. Also, flying in one direction whilst facing another isn't possible in the retail version of Freespace 1 or 2 (would've been cooler if it was, but meh).
However FSO has a "glide" function that you would need to have enabled in the key settings on the options page (the default is Alt-G), but if you're wanting that to work in the FS1 or 2 campaigns, you need to edit some tables to get it working, I think. Hopefully someone else who's more in the know about such stuff will tell you how.
The Babylon Project has some ships which have lateral and vertical thruster controls though, together with the glide function, but not all playable ships have these controls.