Planes overhead in B26
Birmingham and Solihull, West Midlands. All 566 of its postcodes measured (9 PO boxes and other large-user postcodes left out), January to August 2026.
From Birmingham
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Birmingham flies, and that decides how many pass over B26. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 38% of days
Up to 1
a day
Of its 566 postcodes:
- under 10
- 566
On a day it flies both ways, 24% of days
Up to 35
a day
Of its 566 postcodes:
- on an edge
- 1
- under 10
- 565
On a day it flies east, 38% of days
Up to 65
a day
Of its 566 postcodes:
- on an edge
- 1
- under 10
- 565
Each sector's bar splits its postcodes by how many planes pass over them a day; the figure above it counts those in the busiest band the sector reaches. The list above gives the whole district's counts.
| Sector | Flying west38% of days | Both ways24% of days | Flying east38% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| B26 1157 postcodes | 157 under 10 | 157 under 10 | 157 under 10 |
| B26 2199 postcodes | 199 under 10 | 199 under 10 | 199 under 10 |
| B26 3210 postcodes | 210 under 10 | 1 on an edge | 1 on an edge |
On an edge: the postcode is on the edge of a flight path, where a few metres decide whether a plane counts as overhead, and the fewest and the most within 100 m of it fall in different bands.
1 of its postcodes have a position ONS estimates, so their figures may be for a spot a few hundred metres away.
What counts as overhead
Overhead means more than halfway up the sky (48.5 degrees or more) and below 7,000 ft, the CAA's definition of an overflight (CAP 1498). A day counts as one way when 80% of its flights used that way. PO boxes and other postcodes for organisations that receive a lot of post are left out: they sit at a delivery office or a business, not at homes.
Near B26
B33 B92 B37 B34 B36 B11 B91 B28
The councils
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Birmingham. Flight tracks: adsb.lol (ODbL 1.0); Weather at each airport: Iowa Environmental Mesonet; Ground heights: Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right; Postcode positions: ONS National Statistics Postcode Lookup (OGL). Licence: Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0.