Planes overhead in B26
Birmingham and Solihull, West Midlands. All 575 of its postcodes measured, 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 2 a day; of its 575 postcodes, 575 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (24% of days): up to 35 a day; of its 575 postcodes, 1 on an edge, 574 under 10
- On a day it flies east (38% of days): up to 65 a day; of its 575 postcodes, 1 on an edge, 574 under 10
The table counts the postcodes of each sector by how many planes pass over them a day: 100 or more, 10 to 99, or under 10.
| Sector | Flying west38% of days | Both ways24% of days | Flying east38% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| B26 1158 postcodes | 158 under 10 | 158 under 10 | 158 under 10 |
| B26 2199 postcodes | 199 under 10 | 199 under 10 | 199 under 10 |
| B26 3218 postcodes | 218 under 10 | 1 on an edge217 under 10 | 1 on an edge217 under 10 |
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.
Near B26
B33 B92 B37 B34 B36 B11 B28 B91
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.