When were speed brakes a pre-requisite for formation?
Not sure how the negative torque system worked on a king air, but on a Herc there was no airborne brake effect from the props....and on the K a flight engineer to nudge the power levers forward if you tried!
Back in the days of ‘proper’ flying training, everyone did quite a bit of formation at BFTS pre-streaming and there was none at METS. Once you got to a front line type, if you needed to tank, the basic muscle memory soon came back, but you still had to learn type specific techniques, such as using rudder rather than aileron for positioning in the Herc.