GoneWest,
I'm surprised this thread has gone a whole day without a reply. I wasn't going to reply myself, since I live in the UK, but since no one else has bothered, I'll answer as best I can.
Having done the brush-up courses for both modules of a distance learning course, I've met people from the USA, South America, continental Europe, NZ and South Africa to name a few. Yes, there are plenty of people who take the "distance" in distance learning to extremes!
The actual distance itself should make very little difference. You will need to be in regular contact with your school - even if you get through the whole course without having to consult an instructor even once, you'll still need progress tests marking and so on. But the wonders of modern technology mean that this really isn't very much of an issue - you might find a slight delay because of time differences, but no big deal.
You mentioned not living/breathing the procedures you're trying to learn. Well, the last time I checked, a VOR works exactly the same way in the USA as it does over here! As does a wing, and a jet engine, and so on.....
Ok, ok, so I know that when it comes to things like Air Law there may be slight differences internationally. Actually, by the end of it, you'll be totally confused by all the subtleties regardless of where you come from. For example, Operational Procedures is based on JAR. Air Law is based on ICAO. There are huge areas which are covered in both subjects, but you have to remember a different set of regulations for each. Then there are some bits of Air Law which are based on JAR, so you can get almost the same question twice in one exam, with two different answers depending whether the question specifies JAR or ICAO. The only way to learn these subjects is to forget everything you know already and just learn it from scratch, regardless of where you've done your previous flying.
But anyway, that is a very small percentage of the material. Most of it applies equally well wherever you fly in the world.
Good luck!
FFF
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