Hi Brian;
You have gotten a lot of great advice. One other thing I would mention is that flight simulators vary tremendously in how difficult they are to fly compared to the real thing. Although the real thing is always harder than flying on a simulator, the better simulators (i.e Real Flight, Aerofly, Phoenix, Clearview) will speed your learning curve up tremendously. You can even change flight conditions (i.e. add wind and change the wind direction) which will really challenge you. Clearview is by far the cheapest and comes with lifetime upgrades. Hope this helps and good luck.
Mel
P.S. I have greatly modified my Super Cub and it is still one of my favorites out of many planes to fly.