How dare anyone say the ADF isn't useful! I use mine all the time...
1. It has a handy dial with the numbers 0-35 round it, perfect for noting your assigned altitude, or for counting landings when doing pattern work
2. Mine has a nifty built in timer which is by a long way the easiest to operate of the half dozen or so timers on the panel
3. It also has a "time since the avionics master was turned on" timer which is perfect (a) for logging total flight time and (b) for the times when I forget to write down engine start time until later, which is to say 90% of the time
4. Tuned to the 50KW AM station a couple of miles from my airport, it points to the airport (or close enough) from just about anywhere within 300 miles, at altitude, which is reassuring if not terribly useful
5. It makes a decent AM radio although I rarely use it for that
6. Not exactly "useful", but you can use it to fly strange things called NDB approaches which while utterly useless in practice (in the US they all have GPS overlays anyway which have the great advantage that there is a reasonable chance you'll find a runway at the end of them) certainly makes for some fun practice, especially in actual with a crosswind. Sadly the FAA is decomissioning most of the NDB approaches close to me.
So, all in all, one of the most useful boxes in the plane. Not much use for real-life approaches though.
n5296S