Planes overhead in WS4

Walsall, West Midlands. All 332 of its postcodes measured (5 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 WS4. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:

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.

Planes overhead from Birmingham in WS4, by postcode sector and the way Birmingham flies
SectorFlying west38% of daysBoth ways24% of daysFlying east38% of days
WS4 1231 postcodes231 under 10118 at 10 to 99231 at 10 to 99
WS4 2101 postcodes101 under 10101 at 10 to 99101 at 10 to 99

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 WS4

WS9 WS3 WS1 WS2 WS5 WS8 WV12 WS10

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.

How the planes are counted