cessnapete I hold both FAA and EASA IRs and I fly IFR a reasonable amount for a private pilot. For a revalidation flight I wouldn't normally bother doing any practice with an ATO or independent instructor if I'm feeling reasonably current. Although a reval is theoretically to the same standard as the initial I know that in the unlikely event of messing something up the examiner will probably just ask me to do it again so long as it wasn't anything too catastrophic.
If I had to do my
initial EASA IR again I probably would go and do some practice with an instructor because the pass standard is quite high and if one hasn't done any holding recently you might be rusty at it - just better safe than sorry.
The approach requirement on the test is one precision and one non-precision. That could mean you get ILS and a GPS without vertical guidance or you could get ILS and NDB, it is entirely dependent on what the examiner feels like on the day and what is in the aircraft. Obviously if the aircraft has no ADF then you can't do one...
