Thanks all - I think Bob Viking and F-16GUY best nailed it down to specifics, and the formation I saw fell into those horizontal/vertical parameters, at least as far as I could tell.
I always imagined that maintaining safe separation on a 6 hour ferry flight with half a dozen other aircraft buzzing around you would be pretty hard going, especially in a single seat, and even more so if you need to go heads down for instrumentation checks etc.
This near miss was a 2 ship Italian formation on a ferry flight that was caused by a downed transponder, also happened to be F-16s, I think the formation lead was heads down until the last moment and I wondered if his number 2 was more focused on lead than the airspace ahead of them. Your thoughts always appreciated.
Last edited by Fonsini; 25th Aug 2017 at 14:32.