From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!alice!danny Newsgroups: net.aviation Title: Re: IFR insurance low cost Article-I.D.: alice.1418 Posted: Tue Jan 25 17:23:48 1983 Received: Fri Jan 28 03:06:07 1983 References: ihuxr.295 avsdT.271 ihuxa.180 Having nothing but 121.5 capability in an IFR emergency situation is even more useful than has been pointed out on the net. Perhaps more important than the many ground facilities that monitor 121.5 are the large number of airline and gen. av. pilots who make a point of "guarding" 121.5 on an otherwise unused radio and can relay emergency messages to a ground facility on an appropriate frequency. This can be quite significant since VHF air-air range can easily be a couple of hundred miles. As for an inexpensive back-up altimeter, you can do better than the $95 skydiver model. I've seen altimeters meant for auto dashboards that sell for $16 and should be accurate to within several hundred feet. Not the kind of thing you'd wanna use for a non-precision approach to minimums, but better than nothing at all.