How « formation flying » can suddenly go wrong.
In the late 80s I was on a 17 day Anchorage/ Tokyo flying the DC10 out of ZRH. The skipper was on Hunters and in the Swiss national gliding team whilst the system operator pilot (cpl) was on military choppers, both with formation flying experience whilst I had none.
We hired aircraft to fly out to the Skwentna road house whose runway was frozen as it was mid winter. The others hired Cessnas whilst I hired a Cherokee as I had a couple of hundred hours on them including an instructors rating which included a lot of stalling, steep turns and spinning. The flight out in winter twilight conditions went well with the skipper leading the way in a loose line abreast. We were met with snow mobiles and enjoyed a real Swiss goulash. The three of us then went playing on snow mobiles each with one of our hostesses clinging to our waists.
On the way back we were moose and bear spotting below 500ft AGL with me on the left and slightly behind the other two. I spotted a moose and rolled into a left steep turn so that the girls could see it.
Flat out to rejoin the other two aircraft I was in the 8 o clock position when the skipper rolled into a left orbit having spotted another moose. As a competition glider pilot standard turns are carried out with 40+ degrees of bank. Instinctively I rolled to the left and pulled but realised the error immediately as he disappeared under the nose. I tightened the turn up to the stall buffet.
Years later I was asked to join in a partnership to import Pipperstral aircraft and get a microlight instructors endorsement. Having flown the high wing Sinus with the French dealer and World champion I declined. The visibility in turns was awful and the thought of flying circuits with other traffic put me off.
One never knows what the other guy is going to do and flying outside of regimented procedures is dodgy imho.