Silverknapper
Well, what can I add - dilemma if you do, dilemma if you don't. They're both valid viewpoints.
Personally, it's my opinion that if you look hard enough, one can see drawbacks and reasons for NOT doing something in almost any aspect of life. If you concentrate on the drawbacks all the time, life would be pretty dull and none of us would ever chance anything.
Silverknapper makes a valid point - 'if you have doubts, perhaps there's the answer'. I think it's possible to have major doubts, but still choose to go ahead, having weighed up the risks and accepted them.
For starters, it's possible to reduce or eradicate many of those risks, simply by getting advice off forums like this. Since I started on PPRUNE, I have changed opinions and ideas 3 or 4 times - all beneficial as well I might add eg getting the class 1 medical before spending a penny (CAA reckon it's not uncommon for someone with 100 hrs or so and a class 2 to then come in and fail the class 1, and the CPL idea goes Pete Tong). This forum is brilliant - best thing I've come across.
Two things started me on the road to try this as a career once again. Firstly, a heli trip in a Hughes 500 over Fjordland in NZ, which was chuffing marvellous, flying over a frozen caldera and above the worlds 4th highest waterfall. Secondly, I saw a program about Jonny Kennedy, who was born with an incurable disease that made his skin fall off on contact. That lad lasted for 36 years until he died of skin cancer last year. You have to see the documentary to believe it. I'm not an emotional person, but to see the bravery, courage, good humour and pragmatism of that lad who was in perpetual pain and immobile, I made a pact with myself then to get out there and take more chances in life. Here's me wondering whether to have a crack at something I've always wanted to do and being slightly worried about blowing cash I can afford to blow, whearas someone like Jonny Kennedy would have given 300 times that money simply to be able to kick a ball about for eg.
It's a very levelling thought, and not intended to sound sanctimonious at all. As such, I still have doubts, and always will have, but I'm still going to have a crack at it.
Manage the risks and go for it !!!