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A GTN reads its flight plans once, while powering up. Anything that arrives later is invisible to it until the next start.

So the reliable pattern is: send the plan, then cycle the avionics once — which happens at engine start anyway — and it is waiting for you.

This is a limit of the card, not of GAirFlash. Garmin's own answer is a Flight Stream 210 or 510: an installed unit that talks to the navigator over Connext rather than through the card slot, so plans can be sent at any time, including in flight. It is panel-mounted hardware and an avionics-shop job.

Sharing a route queues it straight away, with no Wi-Fi needed. It is written to the card the next time the aircraft is in range and checked afterwards, so a plan is never marked sent unless it really is.

Worth a try: power the avionics with GAirFlash already open in front of you and join the card's network immediately. If it connects fast enough the plan can land before the navigator finishes starting, and you skip the extra power cycle.

Flight Plan ▸ Menu ▸ Catalog ▸ Import, then choose the route. GAirFlash puts the file where the navigator looks; the last step is yours.

The card switches its own Wi-Fi off after a while to save power, and only a power cycle brings it back. Settings lets you choose how long it waits — "Stays on" is recommended, and GAirFlash writes that to the card for you.

Callsign, which folder the navigator reads, and how many plans to keep are stored on the card itself — not on your phone. So whoever flies the aircraft next finds it already set up, and everyone sees the same thing.

What stays on your phone is what is yours: how you like plans named, whether this phone uploads automatically, and your notifications. Change those in Settings and they follow you, not the aeroplane.

If two of you change a card's settings at once, the second change is refused rather than quietly overwriting the first.

The navigator's list is kept short. Anything pruned is moved into an archive folder on the card, so it stays with the aircraft and every pilot sees the same history.

Drag a plan between the two lists to move it. If the navigator is already full, restoring one pushes the oldest down into the archive — and you are shown which one before you let go.

Plans → /FPL Archived → /FPL_Archive