[Chewie von Nubbins]

Congrats man. I am about 2 months ahead of you and I can tell you that the Private was quite a bit harder than the IR. Not that the IR is easy..by any means. But, now you have the tools that you need to learn how to fly the airplane. The IR is much more cut and dry and not quite as open to interpretation as the Private or Commercial...as far as being judged on the maneuvers. I just took my IR checkride last Tuesday. Make sure to know DPs like the back of your hand. 90% of your training will be flying the approach, and very little time will be paid to DPs. The DE that I had spent 90% of the oral on DPs and SIDs and 10% on the approach. The majority of the fatalities using the IFR system happen on the departure...because people focus so much more on the approach instead of the IFR departure.

Hope this helps, and good luck. And, don't get frustrated if learning to perfect the ILS is a very similar experience to learning how to land the airplane. Getting down the ILS was the hardest part of my training. Keep us informed, bro.