md83driver,
Thank you very much for your reply, I was starting to wonder if I would get any responses, although there are a myriad of pages on pprune relating to this topic.
I fully agree that training in Europe is probably the last option to take due to the prohibitive costs involved, I just want to give myself the best opportunities that I can. My wife is fully supportive of my decision to change careers, mostly because in the 6 years she has known me it's all I talk about, but I sometimes worry how supprtive she'll be if in two or three years time I'm unemployed having spent soooooo much money on training.
Anyway, thanks again for the advice. If anyone else out there has any more perils of wisdom they might like to share I'm on pprune for a couple of hours every day checking.