What's this thing? I press backslash, and something changes, but I don't understand why and what's for.

What's the purpose of that thing?
Do you use it?

It's a bad name, but it allows you to change the view position in cockpit (by pressing CTRL + \ and moving it around with numpad-keys).

I often change the view position. But I don't see why we need a separate mode for it, just make wide view the only mode (or allow changing position for normal view).

A extremely useful function (once I found the right key on this keyboard) - my seat in the Hind is now right the way back and slightly up and it all makes so much more sense