Alioth, I agree with you completely. Still, it is an improvement over PDF emails and faxes. The author of that system deserves a lot of gratitude for his work with Border Force to get this to the state it is.
I've not come across any details on the API -- have you seen them?
It has been repeatedly promised - although AFAIK it isn't available, yet.
When it is made (slightly) more available, I plan to spend an afternoon creating a simple HTML form hosted on google apps. I'm guessing you've had a similar thought?
The online GAR was developed by John Murray, posting here.
To his huge credit, he has put in a lot of work to bang heads together here in the UK. Politically this must have been a difficult task - as would be anything where jobs are threatened, even if the jobs are seemingly pointless paper-pushing jobs when seen externally.
But yes it's obvious the whole thing could have been a website done in Hot Metal Pro in 1996. But hey one could say the same for AFPEX - another UK political hot potato - which was implemented as a massive java client app.
Let's hope the API comes out.
OTOH, presumably, concerns must exist over hacking/vandalism/DOS attacks. I don't know how these have been solved. It seems to be just a login. AFPEX went through all this too. I visited the AFPEX team a while ago when writing this up. There were serious concerns raised at the time. The US online system has no history of hacking but the UK will always reinvent the wheel...
Or maybe somebody could run the Silverlight app on a windoze web server and front it as an HTML form?
When it is made (slightly) more available, I plan to spend an afternoon creating a simple HTML form hosted on google apps. I'm guessing you've had a similar thought?
Yes, exactly that.
I'm also not sure whether the current app/Silverlight app does the right thing with the Isle of Man police (which is of course the one I really care about, being based at Andreas IOM), so I've continued to use faxes (I have a pre-filled form, I just need to put the date and destination in).
Sorry for the OT...
Does Andreas currently allow visitors in with PPR? Condition of the runway?
Thank you!
As far as I know, you can call the owner and she'll let you land at Andreas.
The runway is in poor condition. Very stony. I'd not fly in there with anything fibreglass or with low prop clearance. If you can stick to the bits of the runway the microlighters have marked out with a kind of white square bracket, there's not too many stones there.
Thanks.
GAR and Customs/Immigration question
All,
We are planning out first trip to France in a few weeks and we plan to fly from France back to Great Oakley, our local based airfield. I plan to file the GAR as required. Hypothetically, say I am in France and the weather forecast changes and we decide to leave early and somewhat in haste.
Am I understanding this correctly: we could fly in to Lydd (for example as it's designated) without ANY GAR or notice and clear customs/immigration? Just file a flight plan in France, depart a French designated customs airfield, and come back and land at Lydd and clear, right?
Thanks, -Jason
Hi
I stand to be corrected, but I believe you still have to fill in the GAR form regardless of whether the UK airfield has immigration, customs, police or a certificate of agreement. They wont all have customs or police 24x7, so I think the form is to advise them should they want to attempt to meet up with you.
Other have said in some older threads, that you should file for the latest time you intend to return, and if you're earlier, then you're earlier, and thats it. If there is a major concern about you, your aircraft, your route into the UK etc, a radar service controller will notify the police. It happened to me, diverting to Shoreham, going off the flight plan route, to cautiously get some fuel, and London Information notified the cops, and they just wanted to know why we diverted. That was it.
It doesnt sound right, but as far as I know, it is not officially spelt out chapter and verse any clearer than that.
In principle, I would say yes, but your example, Lydd, is a bad one because according to the current GAR instructions, Lydd is not designated for immigration, which is the only thing that matters for a flight from France to mainland UK.
And yes, I guess you would stilll have to fill out a GAR upon your arrival to a designated aerodrome; it's just the advance notice requirement that wouldn't apply.
You are right boscomantico...I didn't catch that. It looks like Southend is the only viable alternative based on my home base. I guess it's just easier to file the GAR within the required notice period and head straight home!
