"Rob" wrote in message
om...
My learning style is definitely "do it all at
once and keep focused on the instruction" rather than "a little here
and a little there".

The best way to learn is to have regular lessons but not cram them in too
close to each other. Once or twice a week is fine - much more than that and
you'll get brain overload; much less and you'll effectively be doing
refamiliarisation each time you fly because you'll have got out of practice.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't sometimes have more or less tuition
than this (when you're circuit bashing there's no fault in having a number
of one-hour sessions on consecutive days, for instance - though to have more
than an hour at a stretch would probably be over-tiring) but it's not a bad
starting point.

In the meantime, I'm taking my time to explore
the various topics associated with flying (weather, navigation, engine
mechanics, flight physics, etc.).

Sensible approach. Get hold of the right text books, though - you might as
well learn from the proper material instead of merely getting background
information from unapproved sources.

I promise not to get behind the yoke until I've
hammered out as many quirks as I can, so don't worry.

I'd hope you'd be given the controls not long into lesson one - when you
learn to fly, you learn by doing, not by watching. The neat thing is that
you have a nice man/woman to your right to make sure you don't kill anyone.

Electronics engineering classes were also a problem...I'm
more of a software guy now (my career) because nothing "burns up" and
if something doesn't work, you just debug and recompile it.

As long as you can learn things steadily and methodically, you should have
no problem picking it up. As you're a "software guy", it leads me to believe
that you have a logical mind - and everything about flying is based on logic
(while there's an art to making a greaser of a landing, you can make a
satisfactory one by science alone).

Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and especially dividing complex
numbers (really anything involving 3 digits or more in total)
virtually paralyzes me and I have to run to a calculator, or write it
all down and/or use my fingers.

Hey, so use a calculator. Although you sometimes have to recompute stuff in
the air, you do 90% of the calculations on the ground, and it doesn't matter
what method you use (how many of us work out our weight and balance using
long multiplication, I wonder?). If you find yourself off course, the
in-flight computation is generally: "Ah, let's go left a few degrees and see
what happens". Where you do have to compute stuff in the air, you tend to
use rule-of-thumb calculations, not silly numbers (e.g. if you want to know
the bank angle required for a rate one turn, you use complex maths if you so
wish, or you can do what everyone else does and divide your speed by ten and
add seven).

Finally, my personality could be a concern. I lose my temper at
backseat drivers (ATC?)

ATC aren't back seat drivers; they're there helping you. You need to start
with the right attitude - namely that ATC is there to ensure that everyone
in the sky gets where they want to go in safety wherever possible.

and getting lost when driving (fog bank?
checkpoint VFR over unfamiliar terrain?).

For your basic licence, there's only one manoevure you do in fog - namely
turn through 180 degrees and head back out the way you came. As for
checkpoints over unfamiliar terrain: you should spend most of your life
looking out of the window, not at the dials, and so you're _always_ checking
where you are as you go along. This is one misconception that a PC flight
sim instills in people - even with the reasonably good scenery you get these
days, it's hard to navigate by looking out of the window, and so you do it
by instruments. In real life, navigating by looking out of the window is
actually quite easy - though from time to time you may lose track of where
you are and need to get your bearings from the map.

I also have a little
difficulty focusing on a person talking or giving directions while I'm
simultaneously maneuvering through a busy intersection (ATC chatting
at me while I'm manipulating Nav or GPS controls and scads of other
instrumentation while maintaining altitude and level flight?). Are
these traits that I could reasonably expect to "unlearn", especially
now that I'm in my 30s and my neural pathways are hardening along with
my arteries?

I'm sure most of us are like that to start with. Your subconscious soon gets
the hang of filtering the rubbish out. I often take friends out for a fly,
and they're bemused by all the chatter. After half an hour or so, though,
they start to realise what's going on, and can often pick out the
communications that are aimed at us.

If you've gotten this far, thank you for following my ramblings. I
know it's a little much, but if you wouldn't mind taking some time to
answer my questions and give me some advice on how to approach flight
training, I would sure appreciate it.

I'd say: give it a go. Try out a handful of lessons, and tell your
instructor of your concerns on day one. After three or four hours, he or she
will have a reasonable idea of whether you're going to stand any chance
whatsoever of becoming a pilot - and if not, you've not wasted a lot of
money (and you'll have had some fun while you were at it!).

D.