Planes overhead in WS8
Walsall, West Midlands. 311 of its 319 postcodes measured, the ones in Walsall (4 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 WS8. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 38% of days
Under 1
a day, at all 311 of its postcodes
On a day it flies both ways, 24% of days
Up to 14
a day
Of its 311 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 40
- under 10
- 271
On a day it flies east, 38% of days
Up to 29
a day
Of its 311 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 100
- on an edge
- 6
- under 10
- 205
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WS8 6129 postcodes | 129 under 10 | 129 under 10 | 5 at 10 to 99 |
| WS8 7182 postcodes | 182 under 10 | 40 at 10 to 99 | 95 at 10 to 99 |
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.
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 WS8
WS9 WS4 WS3 WS2 WS1 WV12 B74 WS5
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.