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Landing in Trail
•I recommend landing in trail until you are very proficient
•Standard 45 degree downwind pattern entry procedures:
–Flight lead:
•Shift your flight to the outside during or before the 45 degree leg
•Don’t forget your cockpit check and a gear-down call on downwind!
•Carry a little extra speed on final to avoid bunch-up
•Lead lands on the downwind side of the runway
•Never cross the runway centerline until it’s safe
–Wing:
•Wing turns base 3 to 5 seconds after the lead turns base
•Avoid wake turbulence from the lead on final!
•Maintain appropriate spacing on final
•Land on the “open” (non-lead) side of the runway
•As always, be prepared to make a safe and timely go-around
•Lead needs to fly straight-in approaches with some extra speed to allow the wingman to drift back for spacing
Landing in trail isn’t particularly difficult, but there are some significant differences from landing solo.  One obvious difference is that you are going to be a whole lot closer to other traffic in the pattern than you have ever (intentionally) been before!  A second difference is the ground roll phase where you can expect to be sharing the runway with the other members of your flight.
The essence of a safe formation arrival followed by an “in-trail” landing is to make a clean separation between the “formation” and the “solo” phases of flight.  During the formation phase of landing, it is particularly critical to maintain a high level of flight discipline, especially because you are going to be very busy configuring the plane for landing (mixture, power, gear, etc.), and maintaining your awareness of other traffic in the pattern and all tower instructions.  In this phase, lead’s primary job is to get his flight into the pattern safely and configured for a comfortable breakup for landing.  Speed control and thinking ahead is critical!  Things can deteriorate quickly if the lead does not carefully modulate his power changes and turns.
Typically, the first really big power reduction that the wing encounters on the flight is when the lead enters the pattern, and it can be a big surprise!  Wing should be spring loaded to match lead’s power reduction, or an over-run situation is almost certain to develop.  Thus, the lead has an obligation to make gradual power reductions, and he must maintain a comfortable flight speed.  Over-running the lead with your throttle at idle and your airspeed as low as it can go is not fun!
Once you get really good, you can consider an overhead break.  Until then, I would recommend that the break occur as the formation turns from downwind to base.  Lead breaks first, followed by the rest of the flight at 3–5 seconds intervals each.  Lead should avoid bunch-up by maintaining a little extra speed on final.  This gives his flight some speed to “play with” to maintain proper spacing.  The opposite condition, with the flight spread out all over the place on final is an even more common error.  Remember, that as a flight, you are treated as a single plane.  Tower is not expecting your flight to take 10 minutes to land!  Lead can do the tower a favor by announcing, for example, “flight of three, landing in quarter mile trail”.
Wake turbulence is a significant hazard landing in-trail.  Know where it is and then don’t go there!!