I registered this morning without delay or difficulty.
A couple of minor points:
It would be nice if I could recall my address to save having to re-enter it for the Mrs (or kids if appropriate).
I was using an ipad and pop-up boxes remained after info installed and they obscured the next box. A couple of random screen taps got rid of them but I always worry that I’m going to lose data when I’m doing things like that.
Carl,
from the pilots’ perspective, integration of the system with CI authorities is of little advantage, since all CI aerodrome are fully international aerodromes and don’t require advance notice. It would merely save pilots the duty of handing the GAR in on arrival at the CI.
Ireland is a different story, though. Most aerodromes are don’t have customs on site and automatic notification for flights UK—>RoI (and vice versa) would come in very handy.
Norman — we’ve got an issue where some emails are disappearing, i’ve had to manually verify a few users. Please email me from your email address to [email protected] and i will unlock you.
StickAndRudderMan – We provide a button to copy a PAX, or just copy one from the same family. This copies the address details
Carl
Looks like a fairly slick website from user interface perspective. Much better and more compatible than the Silverlight AOPA one. Integration with popular flight planning Apps will be great.
Since you are now storing personal data, I expect there are a few data compliance issues to work through. It surprised me that the site doesn’t state the owner (presumably either your company or John Murray’s) and the registered address. There is no privacy statement or terms & conditions. No mention of who owns/administers the data and where (which country) it’s kept in. Simply listing a gmail contact/enquiry email address gives it a less professional look. This may make it appear to some that the site is an anonymous or even potentially spoof website, and I’d suggest that this would need attention before going live.
Factoring in some of the “near foreign” popular GA destinations would be a nice touch. Ireland has been mentioned, but I wonder if sending the form for PPR to Le Touquet and a few other similar destinations which require it might also be advantageous.
Hi David,
Thanks for the positive feedback. As you know launch is not until 19th March, and during that time we’re finalising terms & conditions, commercials, data protection, etc – all of this will be done by go-live. Right now it’s a technology preview.
We’ve put together a feature that generates a PPR email which can be pasted directly to Le Touquet – once a GAR is filed there’s an email button for this purpose. In the future we could automate this, but we’re trying to keep the scope clear and simple for launch.
Regards,
-Carl.
Brief Update: We’ve decided to give 20 free credits to CTA residents (I.E> Channel islands and Isle of Man).
I’ve been busy working on some of the fine tuning of the security and I wanted to update to let you know where i’m currently at.
1. I have defined “sensitive data” as meaning DOB, Passport/ID Number and Address (excluding the country field).
2. Sensitive data is no longer shown on the plain text confirmation email.
3. Sensitive data is held as encrypted on the database
4. When a business user views a PAX record, they can only see this sensitive data before the GAR is submitted. After that it’s locked and hidden. Note that the passport expiry is considered as a vital field for them to see, so it’s not classified as sensitive.
5. We have a first draft security and privacy policy, needs a bit of polishing and embellishing but it’s getting the key points across. It’s here: https://www.onlinegar.com/support.olg?opt=privacy
I’m taking security, privacy and data protection very seriously and welcome any comments, criticisms or improvements.
I have set up a new Google Group for support, bugs and feature requests. It’s here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/onlinegar-discussion-and-support
Looking back at the tens of pages of discussion around the old GAR apps, i’m keen that Flyer Forum doesn’t become the support base, as it ends up as a jumbled mess. If anyone has any specific requests or problems, please use the forum. Meanwhile, general discussion can go on here, or if there’s a specific question that would be handy for the archives, it’s probably better off in the google group.
I just registered and did a test submission, similar to what I have done for real. I like it :-) Its straightforward, intuitive, its clear what has to be entered where.
The AOPA Silverlight web version was OK, but took too long to fill out and I recall you couldnt easily (or maybe not all) save any people information locally or on the server (those Data Protection issues mentioned earlier I guess). And the ‘App’ while a good idea, was absolutely counter intuitive and time consuming to bother using. I admire the person who put in the time to do it, but it didnt fix anything that couldnt be addressed more easily. I did what Peter and others do which was re-using a Word doc, and emailing to the local constabulary.
I could not get silverlight to work on some machines (winXP). I eventually somehow solved it on the laptop which I actually travel with.
Like AFPEX, it is possible to endlessly speculate as to why a simple HTTP or HTTPS website wasn’t used. I guess the powers to be didn’t want to release the API totally openly.
