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The Dragon most likely has the negative applied to its Fly skill.
The Ride skill only applies to the rider, and doesn't cover things like the mount's maneuverability.
My best advice is to sit down and read through the two skill descriptions. All the answers you're looking for are contained in the CRB, and we'd just be quoting them for you here.
They're pretty concise and easy to read, too.
The dragon must use his fly skill to perform aerial maneuvers. This fly skill rules in the CRB describe how much it costs to rise (twice the normal movement cost for non-magical flight) and fall and everything else you need to know.
The ride skill is only relevant for the PC on the dragon's back. This probably wont come up at all, as once you're able to consistently hit a DC 10 ride check there is almost nothing you would care to do that you would be worried about having a higher skill check.
If you're PC's dragon really does have a -12 modifier to fly he is very bad at flying. Making him bad at maneuvering, impossible to hover or fly slowly. Make sure you make the dragon make the checks to fly because otherwise he's probably being played as much more maneuverable than he actually is. Read up carefully on the fly rules.
The biggest problem with running flying combat is that it can easily cover a *lot* of terrain, far more than your average gaming mat. In the past, I have just abstracted that by placing the flying critter's figure at the map edge, with a marker (usually a d6) showing the number of turns the critter is off the map. This was in combats where there is a mix of flying and non-flying foes, so things were grounded at a specific location.
If you're running an all-flying encounter, the only thing that's really important is their relative positions. So whenever necessary, you can just move everyone x number of squares toward the center of the table. This is still far from ideal.
Another option is using a different scale than on ground-based fights, with 10' or even 30' for each square. This works best when all the speeds are an even multiple of the square size. With 30' squares, you can even have a separate "tactical" map showing the 6x6 (5') square area, when combattants actually enter each others' squares.
Ignoring facing between rounds is silly. Sure, nowhere in Pathfinder do you find the concept of facing, but a flying creature really ought not to be able to do a sudden immelmann (a 180° dogfighting maneuver) just because it's the beginning of a new turn, with no inconvenience, fly skill roll or concerns for relative maneuverability.
Gary Gygax was a big fan of FITS (Fights in the Skies) a WW1 aerial dogfight game, and they even made a fantasy version called DITS (Dragons in the skies). Today, Pathfinder is woefully lacking in aesthetically pleasing aerial combat rules. I'm very surprised that no 3PP has come out with such rules. It wouldn't be that hard.
At the very minimum, I would recommend house-ruling a facing requirement, so as to avoid silly maneuver antics between turns.
YMMV.
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How can you justify a character using a Bastard Sword, riding a Huge dragon, able to hit a 6ft tall person on the ground, while flying a dragon? Is there rules for that? Does he need to use a reach weapon to hit anything?
These are the problems I'm having, trying to rationalize physics of the whole thing.
A lance would be more advisable, or at the very least the Lunge feat, but neither are strictly required.
A rider is assumed to share the mount's entire space (all 9 squares, if the mount is Huge). If you're working in 3d, that's 27 cubes.
The Dragon simply needs to be adjacent to an enemy for the rider to swing at it with a Bastard Sword. If the rider upgrades to a reach weapon, it'll be easier to attack with, and can mitigate some of the Dragon's poor maneuverability.
A rider shouldn't be able to attack foes below a flying dragon without a reach weapon. But there are no hard & fast rules for this in PF.
For that huge mount, it's not just 9 squares, but 27 cubes from which it can theoretically attack, which is just silly.
As a DM trying to have at least a semi-real-seeming combat encounter, you need to keep PCs in their own 5-foot square, from which they can measure any reach effects, and house-rule on the fly if there are obstacles that prevent attacking certain targets. It seems very reasonable to claim that the huge dragon's body prevents hitting lower-altitude targets without a reach weapon when the dragon is swooping overhead.
There's a big difference between a PC being able to measure his attacks from either one of two squares occupied by a horse and measuring them from any one of the 27 cubes his flying dragon is occupying. I don't think his exotic saddle allows him to swing from the dragon's claw or wingtip, after all.
I'd really suggest a bow, a lance or some other reach weapon when on dragonback. Or a nice wand. <g>
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Regarding the 27 cubes, which is really an extension of "shares the mount's space", keep in mind that combat isn't static, and it's not really "turn-based". It's an abstraction. A Huge Dragon isn't a 15' cube, it's a long lizard with a wide wingspan capable of rolling, dodging, and lunging. Combat itself is composed of feints, jabs, minor hits, and major blows. Occupying the Dragon's entire space is the least problematic method of handling combat (especially for a GM new to aerial tactics).