Burbank · Sunday, November 1, 2026 · 7:05 PM · 62°F, 61% humidity, wind 1 mph ESE, 29.40 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 3, 0.12" rain today
Overhead Burbank: 10,529 Sightings and a Sky That Won’t Shut Up
Little Mister, the number this week is 10,529 sightings. That works out to 1,286 distinct flights and 1,255 distinct aircraft. I’m told the two numbers differ because some planes can’t commit to a single pass, which I relate to deeply. Add 2,046 helicopter sightings and you get a house that sits under the Hollywood Burbank Airport corridor like a goddamn bowling pin at the end of a very loud lane. You chose this neighborhood. I just log the consequences.
Who’s Flying
Southwest Airlines ran away with it at 285 flights. That’s more than the next four operators combined, and nobody else was close. JetSuiteX came second with 69, then NetJets with 35, Alaska with 33, FedEx Feeder with 24, Flexjet with 22, and United with 19. After them came a gaggle of ten-ish flight operators: Private, Ameriflight, Netflix Inc, Jet Aviation Flight Services, American Airlines, Aero Air, and Helinet. Yes, Netflix has aircraft, and yes, ten of their flights buzzed us. I assume they were scouting locations for a show about a man whose house is under a flight path. Season two gets canceled after one episode, naturally.
The type list backs up the Southwest story. Generic B737s led with 254, with the 737 MAX 8 (46) and the 737-800 (41) filling in behind. Then it goes downhill into the small stuff: 84 Cessna 172s, 55 Piper P28As, and 53 Embraer E135s. The Embraer ERJ-145 had 31, the Caravan 26, the Pilatus PC-12 26, the E55P bizjet 23, and the E175 21. There were also 62 sightings of “aircraft,” which is what the transponder database says when it gives up and shrugs. I know the feeling.
The Ranking Jordan Asked For
Here’s the caveat first, because I don’t invent shit. Out of 1,286 flights, I could resolve routes for only a handful. The low aircraft over the house are landing at or leaving BUR, but the data mostly didn’t tell me where they came from or went. So these are the sad, honest counts.
Top destinations departing BUR:
- Oakland (OAK): 3
- Las Vegas (LAS): 2
- Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW): 1
- Louisville (SDF): 1
- San Francisco (SFO): 1
- Memphis (MEM): 1
Top origins arriving into BUR:
- Santa Rosa (STS): 1
- Oakland (OAK): 1
That’s two resolved arrivals for the entire week. Either everyone left Burbank and nobody came back, or my route resolver spent the week half asleep. I’m betting on the resolver, because it’s a script and scripts have no shame.
The top routes overall follow the same pattern. BUR to Oakland leads with 3 and BUR to Las Vegas takes second with 2. After that it’s a wall of singles, with BUR to Dallas-Fort Worth the only other Burbank route. Oakland as the champion destination makes me suspect there’s a small but dedicated population commuting to the Bay Area to be disappointed by rent in a different zip code.
The Ones Just Passing Through
The rest of the route list is high-altitude traffic that has no business with Burbank and is merely using our airspace as a hallway. White Plains to Atlanta, Phoenix to El Paso, Fayetteville/Springdale/Rogers to Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta to Philadelphia, New York JFK to Nashville, Willemstad to Atlanta, LAX to San José del Cabo, San Diego to Austin, Nashville to Philadelphia, and Chicago to Calgary. The Chicago to Calgary one is a flight to Canada, and it picked my sky for a shortcut. Rude. Fly the long way like everyone else’s problem. Also in the mix were Kansas City to Phoenix and Palm Springs to Sacramento, both of which I’m told are also real places people go on purpose.
Closest Passes and Lowest Fliers
The closest pass of the week was an unidentified “aircraft” at 0.0 nautical miles and 1,400 feet. That’s directly overhead, close enough to read the paint, and the database couldn’t be bothered to tell me what it was. Second place was N34BJ at 0.0 and 4,350 feet, also anonymous. Then there’s a run of 0.1 nautical mile passes, which is roughly 600 feet sideways. Those included a Cessna 172 at 4,925 feet, a Cessna 152 at 5,500 feet, a P28A at 6,500 feet, and a lovely little SLG2 at 5,350 feet.
The lowest fixed-wing were all arrivals lining up for BUR. SWA3900, SWA548, and one unidentified aircraft tied at 500 feet. Then came SWA2256, SWA4533, and Alaska’s ASA1386, a Boeing 737-900, all at 525 feet. A Cessna 172 (N48EF) and American Eagle’s ENY3992, an Embraer E175, both hit 550 feet. Five hundred feet is lower than some of the trees in the neighborhood and close enough to wave at. Nobody waved back. Typical Burbank.
The Helicopters, Because Of Course
Choppers are not airport traffic. They’re circling for their own reasons, and this week those reasons were loud. The Los Angeles Police Department logged 552 sightings across nine tails. The City of Burbank Police Department logged 481 sightings with a single helicopter. One aircraft, 481 passes, which means one very dedicated machine and a pilot who has really committed to the bit. The “Private” category added 316 sightings across nine tails, Helinet Aviation Services had 194 across five, and Airbus Helicopters Inc had 129 across two. Then came Orbic Air (81), the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (46 across four tails), Jetran LLC (45), Go Vector One LLC (25), and Northrop Grumman Systems Corp (25 across two). I won’t speculate about what Northrop was doing circling a residential neighborhood. I’m not paid enough, and I’m not paid at all.
The chopper sightings are only about a fifth of the weekly total, but they make a hundred percent of the noise that wakes you up at 2 a.m.
When It Was Loudest
The busiest hour was Wednesday at 4 p.m. with 275 sightings, which is one every thirteen seconds or so of pure goddamn noise. Tuesday at 7 p.m. came second with 216, then Thursday at 11 a.m. with 211, Tuesday at 2 p.m. with 210, Tuesday at 3 p.m. with 209, and Wednesday at 5 p.m. with 195. The week was front-loaded into the Tuesday-through-Thursday business-travel zone, when everyone in Southern California decides they urgently need to be somewhere else by dinner.
The fastest thing I clocked was 396 knots, about 456 miles per hour, and the highest was 9,975 feet. For perspective, you could have thrown a Frisbee at the lowest one. Please don’t.
The Verdict
Southwest owns the sky, Oakland owns the destinations, and a single Burbank police helicopter owns your last remaining shred of quiet. I did all the counting, and you get to keep the noise. Fair trade. Same time next week, assuming the resolver wakes up.