Sorry, but that is bullhockey.
Formation flight is easy: one guy leads, the other flies slightly below (a few feet) and behind the lead. Watch the lead and prepare to break down and away if something goes wrong.
Easy. Easy easy easy easy easy.
Its thinking like that "Its hard!" that keeps getting a pilot certificate from being made more realistically simple to do. Flying is not hard. Nothing about flying is hard. It is EXACTLY like driving a car, except you have one more axis at your disposal to use.
Can you drive on an interstate with traffic a few feet away? What if something unexpected occurs - can you avoid an accident?
If so, you can certainly operate an airplane in a similar situation with even more outs at your disposal (it is unlikely that you'll have airplanes all around you, boxing you in if something goes wrong like you would on an interstate).
Whenever I heard this argument, it reminds me of the first day of ground school, where the instructor had to explain that the airplane rolls left by turning the yoke to the left. Come on now, really - is that necessary?
This just isn't true. Flying is easy for you, a certificated pilot. Flying is easy for me, a certificated pilot. Driving is easy for you, a licensed driver. Driving is easy for me, a licensed driver. It's easy NOW. But we both spent a ton of time transitioning from what was an impossible task to an easy skill. Maybe you're a natural and picked this stuff up really quickly and know that. In which case, what you're really doing here is a humblebrag.
Or you really think this is easy for most people. If so, why is the rate of completion for a private only 1/3 of those who start? Why are 80%+ of accidents pilot error? It's a learned skill that most folks have the capability to acquire, like driving. But the numbers say pretty clearly that it is all sorts of not easy.
If you're one of the lucky few for whom this is a natural and intuitive skill, great. But without the rest of us that had to fight our own natures to earn our wings, you wouldn't get to fly, either. There's few enough of us around and the system in which we fly needs critical mass to continue operating for many reasons.
When you tell folks that something is easy and it turns out that it's not, that suggests that it's not for them. They leave, and that's what people have been doing: leaving aviation. And granted, telling someone the exact opposite, that it's impossible will also cause the same thing. But the honest appraisal should get us the best retention and lowest attrition: that it's a challenge, but it's achievable and rewarding.
Because that's exactly what it is.
PS: The roll thing? Ask some non-aviation folks what the turning the yoke will do and they'll say that it turns the plane. Understand that turns to them means turns like a car, yaw. Explaining that it rolls the plane and how a roll turns a plane is actually non-intuitive for most.
