On Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 3:57:36 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Although they were in thermal conditions and so not directly comparable to wave, when I was a pupil on lead and follow courses, at different stages in my flying, with 2 top pilots the main aim was that the pupil should experience the same air as the teacher at as close to the same time as possible so that we could understand why the leader responded the way that he did - for better and for worse. To that end we flew in close (really close) line astern formation. In one course we also took turns at leading and justifying our decisions at debriefing. I think it is essential to experience and analyse the consequences of wrong decisions (hopefully a minority) as well as right ones.

- With "really close formation" how did you (1) prevent running into each other and (2) accommodate differences in glider performance? Note that if you slow down to handle (1) you end up higher (2).