Quote Originally Posted by WLIU View Post
...And there may come a day when you only have your ship's battery, one comm, and one nav, to get down out of the clouds...Best of luck, Wes
You had BOTH a comm AND a nav? Piece of cake! 1982. T-28, we started out with only 1 comm and 1 nav installed. Generator failed in the clouds with bases reported 300'. The battery was getting really weak before we got on downwind for the approach, but the guy in the other seat had a ham radio in his survival vest. As avionics and instruments dropped off line he got a phone patch to the GCA controller at NAS Corpus for a no-gyro PAR. Wet compass, altimeter, airspeed, and slip/skid ball were still working when I saw the water over the bay beneath us - then picked up Ocean Drive off to the right - shook the stick to take control and down we went.

What would the next step have been if that hadn't worked? Procedure was to ask for someone else to join us above the clouds, form up, and follow that aircraft's rotating beacon down. Yep, we'd practiced that. In the clouds.

Fun times.