Planes overhead in WS9
Walsall, West Midlands. 589 of its 630 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 WS9. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (38% of days): up to 2 a day; of its 589 postcodes, 589 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (24% of days): up to 53 a day; of its 589 postcodes, 461 at 10 to 99, 28 on an edge, 100 under 10
- On a day it flies east (38% of days): up to 97 a day; of its 589 postcodes, 567 at 10 to 99, 22 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WS9 0208 postcodes | 208 under 10 | 185 at 10 to 9923 under 10 | 191 at 10 to 9917 under 10 |
| WS9 18 postcodes | 8 under 10 | 8 at 10 to 99 | 8 at 10 to 99 |
| WS9 8241 postcodes | 241 under 10 | 198 at 10 to 9920 on an edge23 under 10 | 241 at 10 to 99 |
| WS9 9132 postcodes | 132 under 10 | 70 at 10 to 998 on an edge54 under 10 | 127 at 10 to 995 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.
2 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 WS9
WS4 WS8 B74 WS3 WS1 WS5 WS2 B44
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.