Planes overhead in BR4
Bromley, London. All 372 of its postcodes measured, January to August 2026.
From Heathrow
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Heathrow flies, and that decides how many pass over BR4. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (56% of days): up to 131 a day; of its 372 postcodes, 86 at 100+, 286 at 10 to 99
- On a day it flies both ways (15% of days): up to 81 a day; of its 372 postcodes, 369 at 10 to 99, 3 under 10
- On a day it flies east (29% of days): up to 31 a day; of its 372 postcodes, 109 at 10 to 99, 17 on an edge, 246 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 west56% of days | Both ways15% of days | Flying east29% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| BR4 0174 postcodes | 81 at 100+93 at 10 to 99 | 174 at 10 to 99 | 104 at 10 to 9915 on an edge55 under 10 |
| BR4 45 postcodes | 5 at 10 to 99 | 5 at 10 to 99 | 5 under 10 |
| BR4 9193 postcodes | 5 at 100+188 at 10 to 99 | 190 at 10 to 993 under 10 | 5 at 10 to 992 on an edge186 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 BR4
BR2 BR3 BR1 CR0 SE25 SE20 CR2 SE26
The councils
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Heathrow. 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.