That being said, there are still many people who don't really use the internet for background knowledge.
Agreed.
One afternoon last Autumn at LHR T5 I met one not so young but very keen idealistic wanabee who was about to attend one of the pilot fairs that was doing the rounds at the time. The guy was very clued up about the airlines, knew what he needed to do in the way of exams, flying and the like.....in fact it transpired he'd already booked himself a course of some sort at Cabair...
.... No, he hadn't heard the stories about Cabair that were circulating, and he had never heard of Pprune
Needless to say a bit of advice about money and then useful websites was offered, so I really hope he isn't G-STRX.
Sad to say it's innocents to the slaughter, intent of "living the dream", thinking that all in aviation are knights in shining armour and totally unable to believe that some people prey on that naivity.
I know Pprune is scorned by some "proper" pilots but this section alone is worth it's weight in gold, if only because it allows us old f**ts, long out of training, to keep our ears to the ground and have something useful to say when asked for our advice about becoming a pilot....