Planning Your First Trip
Airport Identifiers:
Quick Tip:
For every option or feature of Max-Trax, there is an associated tag that will give you more information about what it does. Move your mouse over the option or feature to read this information.
If you have already registered for GlobalAir.com's My Flight Department, Max-Trax will automatically place your home airport identifier in the Departure field. If you do not wish to
use your home airport identifier, simply change it. If you do not know the identifier, click the "City/State Search" button to search for an airport.
If your itinerary includes multiple stops, Max-Trax can accommodate up to four legs per trip. Waypoint fields are displayed for you
to use.
Enter your Destination airport as the last airport identifier in the sequence.
Aircraft Details:
Choose which Fuel Type you use in your aircraft: 100LL or JETA/JETA+. Max-Trax will help you find the airports with FBOs reporting the lowest prices for your particular fuel type.
Enter your Max Leg Distance in the appropriate field. This is the maximum distance, in nautical miles, that your aircraft can fly on one tank of fuel.
Trip Options:
Each of the advanced Trip Options is optional. You can skip this step if you do not care about narrowing your search for airports while planning your trip.
With the Facility Use option, Max-Trax only searches public airports by default. You can change this option to search only private airports, or to search both public and private airports.
With the Approach option, you can limit your trip to only airports with an ILS approach, or only airports with an instrument approach.
The Fuel Brands option lets you search for only airports with an FBO reporting fuel prices for a particular brand of aircraft fuel: AirBP, AvFuel, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Phillips66, Shell, Texaco, or Independent.
Finally, you can specify how narrow or wide the Corridor Search Width is: 25 nm, 50 nm, 75 nm, or 100 nm. This is the distance on either side of your trip route that Max-Trax will search for alternate airports with FBOs selling lower-priced fuel than the airports on your route. The wider you make the corridor, the more airports Max-Trax will search to find lower prices.
Plan Trip:
When you are finished entering your trip information, click the Plan Trip button. Max-Trax will generate your trip route and display it in a Google Map window.
Google Map Overview
Quick Tip:
All FBOs who report their fuel prices on Max-Trax must have updated their fuel pricing information within the past 30 days or risk being excluded from Max-Trax and GlobalAir.com’s Airport Resource Center.
Max-Trax is designed to provide you with maximum flexibility in planning your itinerary. Instead of limiting your route to a list of
locations that you can use, Max-Trax will plan your trip based on the lowest fuel prices available along your intended route. You can
change your itinerary with the click of the mouse. If you decide to add or subtract a waypoint, Max-Trax can easily accommodate the change. Max-Trax will recalculate the distances between stops and revise your list of potential fuel stops on the fly.
Once you have provided the necessary initial inputs, Max-Trax responds by displaying an overview of the route (Trip Route) inside a Google Map window. You can choose to accept that route, or modify it to better suit your needs. If you need more detailed information on an airport along the route,
Max-Trax will display it in a "mapping bubble" that will pop up whenever you move your mouse over the airport on the map.
Options Above the Google Map:
Above the Google Map on the left side of the screen, Max-Trax offers a set of links which let you navigate between the trip overview (Trip route link) and mini-maps, which can be accessed by clicking on each of the individual airport identifiers in your route.
Move your mouse over the Legend: Show or Hide link to view the map legend, or to hide it from view. The Legend includes a quick overview of the icons you see on the Max-Trax map, plus links to more information.
Next to the Legend link are other helpful links. Click on Need Help? to chat directly with a Max-Trax customer service representative. You can click on Print Trip to view a printable version of your trip route, plus fuel prices for each FBO along your route. Click on Email Trip to email this same detailed trip information to yourself, or to a friend.
Options in the Google Map:
In the upper left corner of the Google Map, there are plus (+) and minus (-) buttons. This feature lets you zoom in and out on specific map locations. You can also use the arrow buttons to pan left, right, up, or down on the map.
In the upper right corner of the Google Map, there are three buttons: Map, Satellite, and Hybrid. Choose one of these options to switch between the standard Google Map, an aerial satellite map view, or a combination of both.
Blue, Red, and Green Lines:
By default, the airports for each leg of your trip will be connected with a blue line. This lets you easily keep track of your Max-Trax trip route from start to finish.
If the length of a given leg on your trip route exceeds the maximum leg distance you specified for your aircraft on the Plan Trip page, you will see a red line representing that leg of the route, rather than a blue line. In this case, you can add an additional fuel stop along this leg of your trip route to alleviate the problem.
On each side of your trip route, the boundary of the corridor search will appear as a green line (see the Corridor Search section below for more details).
Mapping Bubble:
Quick Tip:
More detailed information on Platinum Sponsor FBOs appears in pop-up bubbles.
One of Max-Trax’s most valuable features is the mapping bubble. It displays additional information about each airport. You can view an airport's bubble by moving your mouse over the airport's location on the map.
The gray bar at the top of the bubble displays the airport's identifier, and whether or not the airport has an instrument approach. Inside the bubble, you will find the airport's name and the length (in feet) of the airport's longest runway. If there is an FBO at the airport that is reporting fuel prices on Max-Trax, the fuel brands sold at the airport will be listed.
Airports that have a sponsoring FBO will display more detailed information about that FBO: the FBO's name, Arinc, phone number, and current fuel prices.
To view even more information about an airport, click on the Airport Information link inside that airport's bubble. This will open a new window and take you to the airport's page on GlobalAir.com's Airport Center.
You can click on the Remove This Stop link inside an airport's bubble to remove that airport from your trip route. If removing a stop from your trip route causes you to exceed the maximum leg distance for your aircraft, a red line will replace the standard blue line on the Google Map for that leg of your trip. (This information is also noted in the Legend.)
You can click on the Review All Airports link inside an airport's bubble to view all the surrounding airports on a Google Mini-Map. Max-Trax searches a 50 nm radius around an airport to generate this map.
Corridor Search:
Max-Trax will automatically find alternate airports along your route with FBOs reporting lower-priced fuel than the FBOs at the airports in your trip. The size of the corridor used to search for lower fuel prices depends on the width you specified on the Plan Trip page. By default, Max-Trax performs a corridor search with a width of 25 nm on each side of your trip route.
On each leg of your trip route, Max-Trax will display up to three alternate airports, each offering a lower fuel price than the price at the airports at either end of that trip leg. Each alternate airport appears on the map as a yellow flag. The airport's identifier and lowest price fuel are displayed inside the flag.
Move your move over a corridor search flag to view detailed information about that airport inside an airport bubble. To add one of these alternate airports to your trip, click on the Add to Trip link inside the corresponding airport's bubble.
My Trip:
On the right side of the screen, you will see a section called My Trip. It displays the total length of your trip, in nautical miles, and offers you three additional trip functions: Start a New Trip, Save This Trip, and Delete This Trip. Max-Trax lets you save up to 10 trips, which you can easily resume from the Plan Trip page when you return to Max-Trax.
Below the trip functions is the list of airports on your trip route, from Departure to Destination. You can click on an airport's + Local Airport Fuel Prices
link to expand and collapse a list of FBOs at the airport that are reporting their fuel prices on Max-Trax. Each FBO listing also shows the date when the FBO last updated their fuel prices on Max-Trax.
You can click on an FBO's name or logo to view more detailed information about the FBO on GlobalAir.com's Airport Resource Center.
Map Flexibility:
Quick Tip:
Airports with FBOs currently reporting fuel prices are shown in red. The airports in blue have no FBOs reporting fuel in the Max-Trax
or Globalair.com ARC mapping systems. This information is also provided in the Legend.
With Max-Trax, you can left-click and hold the mouse button on the map to move it. This allows you to expand your search for alternate waypoints or gain a perspective on the proximity of a new destination to your original route.
If you are trying to view multiple airports, especially on a Mini-Map, and the bubble gets in your way, click on the [x] button in the upper right corner of the bubble to close it and remove it from view. Click on any airport identifier to re-open the bubble. The Google Map will automatically adjust to give you a clear view of the information and options in the bubble. If the airport
that you have selected is included in your itinerary, the airport will also be highlighted on the right side of the screen.