That is really interesting. Thanks for pointing it out.

You could have tip sensors on the following airplane that could select the area of maximum good lift and feed it back to the autopilot for control. The flow in the tip vortex that is visible certanly looks really stable. It should be possible to pick within a few inches once you knew what to look for. Short of that a little work would determine the best point and use a laser or two to position each relative to the other. It would be fun working on that. Luckily I don't have to work any more, retirement has its benefits.

At least in those movies it looks like they would have a good deal of longitudinal separation. I don't think I would take my eyes off the other airplanes in the flight though.

Geese have been doing it for a long time but they have adaptive wing tips and all the other stuff. They also are one with the air, a zen thing.