Planes overhead in SK16
Tameside, Greater Manchester. All 459 of its postcodes measured, January to August 2026.
From Manchester
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Manchester flies, and that decides how many pass over SK16. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (70% of days): up to 262 a day; of its 459 postcodes, 1 at 100+, 145 at 10 to 99, 31 on an edge, 282 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (10% of days): up to 159 a day; of its 459 postcodes, 1 at 100+, 163 at 10 to 99, 295 under 10
- On a day it flies east (20% of days): up to 77 a day; of its 459 postcodes, 37 at 10 to 99, 14 on an edge, 408 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 west70% of days | Both ways10% of days | Flying east20% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| SK16 4252 postcodes | 1 at 100+10 on an edge241 under 10 | 1 at 100+1 at 10 to 99250 under 10 | 1 at 10 to 99251 under 10 |
| SK16 5207 postcodes | 145 at 10 to 9921 on an edge41 under 10 | 162 at 10 to 9945 under 10 | 36 at 10 to 9914 on an edge157 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 SK16
OL6 OL7 SK15 SK14 M34 OL5 OL8 SK5
The councils
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Manchester. 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.