Planes overhead in B73
Birmingham, West Midlands. All 540 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 B73. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (38% of days): up to 3 a day; of its 540 postcodes, 540 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (24% of days): up to 71 a day; of its 540 postcodes, 144 at 10 to 99, 107 on an edge, 289 under 10
- On a day it flies east (38% of days): up to 121 a day; of its 540 postcodes, 133 at 100+, 118 on an edge, 289 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| B73 5246 postcodes | 246 under 10 | 70 at 10 to 9971 on an edge105 under 10 | 66 at 100+75 on an edge105 under 10 |
| B73 6237 postcodes | 237 under 10 | 74 at 10 to 9936 on an edge127 under 10 | 67 at 100+43 on an edge127 under 10 |
| B73 957 postcodes | 57 under 10 | 57 under 10 | 57 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.
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 B73
B23 B44 B76 B75 B74 B24 B35 B20
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.