Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1703157
all the free services are a pain to operate, onlinegar is worth every brass farthing AFAIC.
#1707130
Follow up on this subject.
Yesterday I filed a GAR for today. Later in the evening I got an email request from an individual member of the local Border Force Team saying they had been notified of a flight (they specified the tail number and ETA) and could I please send a copy of the GAR.
I explained that the online system didn't provide that facility and forwarded the confirmation email - that tells us nothing but the confirmation number and the fact it was done using that system. Wasn't at my PC to play around with the system and more interested in dinner at the time.........
This morning I got back into the system and was able to do a screen print showing the details - which I emailed.
This does kind of beg the question; who, exactly, is getting all the information that we submit? It doesn't get sent back to the user for reference and, it seems, isn't being sent to the Border Force people on the ground either.
I have done a fairly thorough feedback, offering my services for design review and/or testing but don't expect a reply since I have done this before.
johnm, Talkdownman, Rob P and 1 others liked this
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By imperialsam
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1707472
Flyingfemme wrote:OnlineGAR is way too expensive when you fly different aircraft, of different configurations, multiple times a week.


Or, if like me, you regularly fly with a seventy-something year old pilot who doesn’t ‘do’ the internet. I file the GARs on his behalf, naming him as the PIC. That costs a princely £18 on OnlineGAR for a return trip, as it needs a professional account to do it. Although I would like to support a service that has made filing GARs a lot easier than it used to be, that is a lot to pay.

Instead, I’ve recently started using the free government portal. But that requires you to enter everybody’s passport, DOB and address details twice, once for each leg of a trip. And it doesn’t store them for easy re-use on future trips. Both of which are so infuriating that it almost makes the £18 seem worth it. I know this chap’s passport number and expiry date by heart now!
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By G-BLEW
Boss Man  Boss Man
#1707489
Filed via SD last Monday, had call from BF saying they’d seen a flight plan but no GAR. I gave them the ref number and emailed a copy to individual officer. He said they were all having issues last weekend
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By Flyingfemme
#1707491
imperialsam wrote:
Flyingfemme wrote:OnlineGAR is way too expensive when you fly different aircraft, of different configurations, multiple times a week.


Or, if like me, you regularly fly with a seventy-something year old pilot who doesn’t ‘do’ the internet. I file the GARs on his behalf, naming him as the PIC. That costs a princely £18 on OnlineGAR for a return trip, as it needs a professional account to do it. Although I would like to support a service that has made filing GARs a lot easier than it used to be, that is a lot to pay.

Instead, I’ve recently started using the free government portal. But that requires you to enter everybody’s passport, DOB and address details twice, once for each leg of a trip. And it doesn’t store them for easy re-use on future trips. Both of which are so infuriating that it almost makes the £18 seem worth it. I know this chap’s passport number and expiry date by heart now!


You can store people and flight details but it’s not intuitive. You’d sort of expect when it says “enter a new aircraft” that it would use them and store them but it doesn’t.
At the top of the screen are labels that allow you to add people and aircraft details for storing - then you just pick them from a ticklist. You still have to enter all the deets for the responsible person every time though.
It has the bones of a usable system but needs work. The screen layout conforms to the government gateway format which is not great for this purpose.
By Lefty
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1707603
What’s worse, is that they seem hell bent on implementing it, and ignoring all input and feedback from the user community. Then they will mandate that we can’t use anything else.