What would you do?

[dany4kin]

I'd really appreciate people's thoughts on this.

I've always wanted to be an airline pilot; colour vision has put an end to that but I work for an airline on the ground and love it.

I can do a PPL and got about 20 hours towards one about ten years ago but back then found it extremely expensive and was always tricky with UK weather. Now I'm looking at about 10k to do a PPL (roughly) and is obviously going to be expensive to maintain. Further, I cannot do an IMC or night rating with my restricted medical so have nothing to aim towards (beyond 'experience') to make me a better pilot.

Now, I could spend approx. 3k to get checked out on a full motion 737 sim for £299 an hour. Still expensive but I'm guessing not far off club aircraft rental with fuel and landing fees included.

So what do you think? Is it worth spending that much to not actually fly - but to get as close as is reasonably possible to what I've always wanted to do?

Further considerations are that my fiancé is not a confident flier and is unlikely to be a willing passenger, my friends would likely come for initial flights but don't have the passion to keep going up and I fear not being able to share the experience will dampen my passion and I'll be another lapsed PPL statistic.

Am I mad to consider spending a third of the cost of a PPL to not be able to 'fly' but to be able to 'fly' a 737 instead? I'd really appreciate your thoughts.