DaveW
9th Aug 2011, 19:54
John Murray, working on behalf of AOPA and the GA community, has let me have early sight of an app for Android (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.murray.Agar14) that he's been working on. Some of you may know John from his GoAV8.net site, which is down at the moment but he tells me that it will be live again shortly.
The Android app is intended to facilitate electronic submission of a General Aviation Report, and after some iterations John has allowed me to advertise it here.
He intends that there will soon be an iPad/iPhone version, too.
It's still in beta at the moment (the beta app expires later this month), but if you'd like to take a look he's made it available from the Android Market. (Or search for "UKBA").
John's been working closely with the UK Borders Agency on this; the beta version will send test messages to the NCU email address (for UKBA), but the "live" version should (agreements permitting) send to Special Branch as well (when appropriate)in addition to UKBA.
The app is planned to be suitably intelligent such that it will determine when SB submission is required, and guide the user accordingly.
The final version is anticipated in September 2011, once the UKBA have launched their approved web portals. Given the expense in licences etc that John has faced, there is likely to be a small charge for the release version.
It is possible that there may also be some streamlining (details tbc) on the UKBA side, too.
You'll notice that there are a few fields that do not currently appear on the latest PDF version of the GAR e.g. Gender; Long Passport Number (although short number only is acceptable); Passport Issuing State; Passport expiry etc). Conversely, there are some fields that are currently on the PDF version that don't appear here - e.g. Place of Birth is no longer there, and VAT / Free circulation in the EU is now a single query.
The reason for these changes from the PDF GAR is that John's liaison with the UKBA has allowed anticipation of a forthcoming GAR update, compliant with the eBorders initiative.
Anyway, give it a go and let John know what you think - either here or directly via his contact details on the Market. I think this has great promise to simplify some of the bureaucracy faced by those Going Foreign (or even to certain other parts of the UK...).
It may be that, as well as this app, John's interaction with the UKBA could well have more general advantages for GA flyers, so his intiative should be applauded for all sorts of reasons.
Here's a taster video demo:
ev1-ulKGizE
An updated version should eventually appear here:
Fd10yiJgNBw
Finally, and as a bonus, you'll see from the video that there is also access to weather information from the same app, tailored to the Departure and Destination details on the GAR.
The Android app is intended to facilitate electronic submission of a General Aviation Report, and after some iterations John has allowed me to advertise it here.
He intends that there will soon be an iPad/iPhone version, too.
It's still in beta at the moment (the beta app expires later this month), but if you'd like to take a look he's made it available from the Android Market. (Or search for "UKBA").
John's been working closely with the UK Borders Agency on this; the beta version will send test messages to the NCU email address (for UKBA), but the "live" version should (agreements permitting) send to Special Branch as well (when appropriate)in addition to UKBA.
The app is planned to be suitably intelligent such that it will determine when SB submission is required, and guide the user accordingly.
The final version is anticipated in September 2011, once the UKBA have launched their approved web portals. Given the expense in licences etc that John has faced, there is likely to be a small charge for the release version.
It is possible that there may also be some streamlining (details tbc) on the UKBA side, too.
You'll notice that there are a few fields that do not currently appear on the latest PDF version of the GAR e.g. Gender; Long Passport Number (although short number only is acceptable); Passport Issuing State; Passport expiry etc). Conversely, there are some fields that are currently on the PDF version that don't appear here - e.g. Place of Birth is no longer there, and VAT / Free circulation in the EU is now a single query.
The reason for these changes from the PDF GAR is that John's liaison with the UKBA has allowed anticipation of a forthcoming GAR update, compliant with the eBorders initiative.
Anyway, give it a go and let John know what you think - either here or directly via his contact details on the Market. I think this has great promise to simplify some of the bureaucracy faced by those Going Foreign (or even to certain other parts of the UK...).
It may be that, as well as this app, John's interaction with the UKBA could well have more general advantages for GA flyers, so his intiative should be applauded for all sorts of reasons.
Here's a taster video demo:
ev1-ulKGizE
An updated version should eventually appear here:
Fd10yiJgNBw
Finally, and as a bonus, you'll see from the video that there is also access to weather information from the same app, tailored to the Departure and Destination details on the GAR.