Precision Approach Radar (PAR) approaches occupy a unique and often overlooked corner of instrument currency regulations, and the scenario posed here — a minimally equipped antique aircraft executing PAR approaches at Elmendorf AFB — raises legitimate questions that are less absurd than they might initially appear. Under 14 CFR 61.57(c), a pilot must accomplish six instrument approaches within the preceding six calendar months to maintain IFR currency. The regulation specifies "instrument approaches" without restricting which type, and a PAR is an FAA-recognized instrument approach procedure catalogued in the AIM. Because the PAR is entirely ground-driven — the approach controller provides all azimuth and glidepath guidance verbally via radio — the aircraft itself requires no navigation avionics whatsoever to execute one. A working radio is the only necessary equipment, which the aircraft in question possesses. On that narrow question, the approaches almost certainly count toward the six-approach requirement.
Where the analysis becomes more complicated is in the two remaining elements of 61.57(c): holding procedures and tasks, and intercepting and tracking courses through navigational electronic systems. The original poster correctly identifies that PAR approaches satisfy neither. Holding requires the pilot to navigate a defined pattern using time or distance and a course reference, which PAR does not provide. The electronic navigation tracking requirement is the more philosophically interesting one — in a PAR, it is the ground controller's radar, not the pilot's onboard avionics, doing all the course tracking. The pilot's role is purely procedural: maintain assigned headings, pitch attitudes, and altitudes as verbally directed. Whether the FAA would ever interpret ground-radar guidance as satisfying the pilot's own use of "navigational electronic systems" is doubtful; the plain language strongly implies pilot-side equipment and skill. These two requirements would need to be satisfied through other means, such as simulator time or approaches using VOR, GPS, or ILS.
The airspace and transponder question is practically significant and worth examining carefully before any such flight. Elmendorf AFB (now Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, or JBER) sits within Class D airspace that abuts Anchorage's Ted Stevens International Class C. While a transponder is not required for the PAR approach procedure itself — the military's ground radar acquisition does not depend on ATC transponder interrogation — accessing the surrounding controlled airspace en route to JBER may independently trigger transponder requirements under 91.215. Class C airspace requires a Mode C transponder within its lateral boundaries and above its floor, and the geographic relationship between the two airports in Anchorage makes a transponder-free transit of the surrounding airspace potentially problematic. The military also exercises its own coordination authority over who enters its airspace, and base operations or approach control may impose additional local requirements that exceed the minimum CFR floor. A call to JBER approach control or base operations before any flight would resolve this definitively.
The broader regulatory picture this scenario illuminates is worth noting for operators and flight departments. PAR approaches, once a staple of military and some civilian operations, have become rare in general aviation, yet they remain valid instrument approach procedures with specific charted minimums. Their ground-equipment-dependent nature means they are inherently immune to aircraft avionics failures during the approach itself, which gives them a unique safety profile. For pilots operating under Part 91, particularly those flying vintage or experimental aircraft with limited avionics, the PAR represents a legitimate if seldom-used currency tool — provided the pilot accounts for the additional requirements that PAR alone cannot fulfill. The anecdote about Elmendorf controllers seeking PAR currency is also operationally real; military approach controllers are subject to their own proficiency requirements, and coordination between GA pilots and military facilities for mutual training benefit is an established, if informal, practice at several installations around the country. The key takeaway for any pilot pursuing this path is that PAR counts, but it does not count for everything, and the aircraft's airspace compatibility must be vetted independently of the approach procedure itself.