Planes overhead in WS8
Walsall, West Midlands. 315 of its 323 postcodes measured, the ones in Walsall, 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 315 of its postcodes
- On a day it flies both ways (24% of days): up to 14 a day; of its 315 postcodes, 40 at 10 to 99, 275 under 10
- On a day it flies east (38% of days): up to 29 a day; of its 315 postcodes, 100 at 10 to 99, 6 on an edge, 209 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WS8 6133 postcodes | 133 under 10 | 133 under 10 | 5 at 10 to 992 on an edge126 under 10 |
| WS8 7182 postcodes | 182 under 10 | 40 at 10 to 99142 under 10 | 95 at 10 to 994 on an edge83 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 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.