Should I refresh my "Private" knowledge before beginning IR studying?

[T Bird]

I got my private about 5 years ago and have just over 100 hours, so needless to say I haven't been flying a lot. Finally at a point where I can commit more time/money to flying so looking at buying a plane and flying 1-200hrs/yr pretty steadily from here on with several longer cross country missions so obviously need (& want) an instrument rating. I feel like I'm somewhat rusty on a fair amount of the book knowledge from getting my private although I do feel safe and on top of everything on each flight I do go on but it's mostly simple local missions. So my question is do you think I should re-read through the private material before beginning IR studying or will studying for the IR basically cover that refresh anyways? I'm sure things related to IR will go more in depth (like weather, instruments) but not sure about other fundamentals/basics -- or how important that knowledge is -- for example, I'm not very confident in my knowledge of the differences wing shapes, in practicality does this matter much? Also figure eventually I'll go for commercial, CFI where these things will come up again but I'm in no hurry to get those, mainly IR. Appreciate any thoughts/advice.

 

[Anthem]

get your cross countries in (or at least some of them) before you start. or you could have a CFI come along and knock out both at the same time. But I dont think much of the "knowledge" aspect (outside of really knowing your weather) will be relevant. IR flying and training is completely different. You'll want to be proficient as in holding altitude by hand flying, good at minor adjustments, etc etc etc. As in all the maneuvers you should be proficient at in controlling the airplane as that's super helpful. But in terms of knowledge and everything else - you should be fine. Good luck and have fun.

 

[TCABM]

There’s enough new knowledge to gain in the IFR space, only a little of which will draw from your PPL.

 

[morleyz]

I haven't taken the IFR written yet, but I've been studying with King Schools online ground school (which I also used for PPL). They review a lot of the PPL content in their courses, so either they think you need to know it for the exam or you actually do. I'm not sure yet.

Probably doesn't hurt to thumb through the private stuff and self evaluate what you don't really remember.

 

[Initial Fix]

I would start with your IFR study and refer back when needed (like most of of likely did)

Have fun. The instrument rating is a lot of work, but really fun at the same time.