Originally Posted by
intransit1217
I wonder how pacelining with panniers works aero-wise.
It works very well as Doug64 already mentioned. The only thing is that it gets a bit harder to do with quartering head winds where you need to string out at an angle in an echelon. With quartering winds, close traffic, and a narrow shoulder it gets a bit awkward. Sometimes rumble strip also make it harder to line up with quartering winds.
All that said on my first tour (TA) three of us drafted each other pretty much the whole trip. I found it made a very big difference maybe even more so with panniers. If there is no wind and you ride slow it doesn't make much difference, but with a pace above 15 mph and/or with a headwind it helps quite noticeably.