it happened to them, it could certainly happen to me.
FH1100 don't be so hard on yourself. Cross-country flight, flat ground, airport every 20 miles and fields every 100yards. Any of my 90 hour students could do it navigating with an iPhone and a bedsheet over the instrument panel. Nav equipment and Met don't matter. Weather is what is in front of you. If it drops you back up to the last airport, or at worst land in a field I suppose. That's why this is such a mystery with two experienced and well-trained ex-military crew. Question you brought up through: is it really ok to bent Uncle Sam's hardware and just grab another off the shelf? In my slim-margin dog-eat-dog commercial world, any mishap can break a company.
I'll add a couple of map pics so everyone knows the area.
