Yep, communicate is third on the list of priorities. And Thing shares the fact that he flew gliders all over the place not bothered a bit with no radio yak.
But its nice to have somebody to talk to if you have a problem. Coming back from Spain in my Supercub, the radio was getting worse and worse, so stopping at Les Mans, I telephoned LeTouquet and told them I had a radio receiver problem,and the nice lady controller said "No Problem! We shall give you ze green light!" and sure enough, I did a normal circuit, and on approach, there it was, bright and green, on the tower balcony.
When training for the instrument rating, the whole thing makes sense....if you have radio failure, you carry on (after setting the magic numbers on the transponder) and fly exactly the flight plan you filed, and the controllers are supposed to get all the airliners out of your way!
Only time I ever had radio problem while flying IFR in the soup, the hair on the back of my neck was at attention! while I tried to sort the problem, reminding myself that THIS was what all the training was about! just follow the plan, just follow your plan! but I found the problem, headset jack loose, and so radioed Houston, they had never missed me at all at all. " No problem, ma'am, just carry on heading 080."