[zzless]

Not to doubt your story but being a flight instructor myself, I cannot imagine intentionally turning off power to airplane radios at an airport with a control tower (this is also illegal). As far as the pure mechanics of landing go, one does not need any instruments whatsoever: one can judge the airspeed by the sound and the wing angle. I routinely make my students do this when I teach tailwheel flying.

[stevehawk]

> Not to doubt your story but being a flight instructor myself, I cannot imagine intentionally turning off power to airplane radios at an airport with a control tower (this is also illegal).

You just pre-arrange it with the tower and it's no big deal. Probably exceptions for busy class Cs or Ds, but it's no big deal to any airport near me.

[grepfru_it]

I once took off with my pitot tube covered. I didn’t even notice while taking off it wasn’t until I was 100ft agl when I scanned my instruments and realized my airspeed indicator was dead. After a split second freak out I realized I had gotten here based on external indicators. So I calmly went right back into the pattern and landed using purely sound, wing angle, visual reference, and muscle memory.

[TheRealPomax]

Not to mention that no one would ever be insane enough to turn off electronics and then say "right, now IFR your way in". You're flying VFR, you're going to have eyes on the runway.