Some of us who have flown close formation rather jokingly refer to the teams as the Blunderbirds and the Blown Angles because we KNOW how rough it is in there with your wings nearly overlapped in the turbulence from the lead jet. It is indeed a workout to keep a jet that close and appear to be welded together. You never actually move the controls, in fact. You THINK the plane up six inches or closer by a foot - and it goes there. You ignore EVERYTHING but Lead. If he flew into the ground, there'd be four holes exactly spaced.
Post WW2 that's exactly what happened to a flight of four P51's--into the backside of Four Peaks mountain.
