Garfs, having read your other posts, I think I know where this coming from!
To answer your question, it was my original intention to simply keep up with a PPL, self-fly hire when I could and fly for pleasure. However, things change! Commercial exams all passed and CPL flying course booked for the summer!!
Flying for pleasure will mean one of two things; self-fly hire or own your own aircraft. Since there are fewer helicopter pilots and fewer helicopters, shares, groups and syndicates are less common.
If you self-fly hire, you have the inconvenience of having to book your flying and then finding out the weather is bad, aircraft u/s etc and you can only take it away for a couple of hours at the most as the school will no doubt want to use it. Therefore, longer trips will become more difficult. Lack of suitable available aircraft for self-fly hire has been cited as one of the reasons why so many PPL holders don't maintain their licence.
Or, you could buy your own machine with all the added joys of responsible ownership; maintenance schedules, hangarage, insurance etc. Sounds good? You won't just be able to keep it on your land without planning permission (unless you plan to only fly it a couple of times a month), you won't have a friendly instructor on hand to ask advice, to give you pointers and refreshers etc.
I suspect (although 83% of statistics are made up on the spot - just as this one is!) that the private PPL-holding owner is in the highest risk group in the accident stats. If your family were having the heeby-jeebys before, they certainly will now!!!
Cheers
Whirls