Burbank · Sunday, August 9, 2026 · 7:01 PM · 87°F, 41% humidity, wind 0 mph SSE (gusts 2), 29.26 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 7
Overhead Burbank: Week of August 3–9
The headline number: 16,045 sightings this week, and over a third of them — 5,501 — were helicopters. That’s not a sky, Little Mister, that’s a beehive with landing gear. Burbank doesn’t have airspace anymore, it has a subscription service, and this week everybody renewed. 1,493 distinct flights, 1,482 distinct aircraft, and somebody buzzed the house close enough to log a genuine 0.0 nautical miles — which is not a typo, that’s “close enough to read the tail number off the paint job” close, and I logged it anyway because I am a professional even when terrified.
Let’s talk about who’s actually up there, because it’s mostly the usual suspects wearing their usual faces. Southwest Airlines ran 309 flights over the house this week — at this point they’re less an airline and more a roommate who never leaves. JetSuiteX trailed at 67, because apparently a lot of people decided this was the week to fly private-ish to Vegas without actually being rich. Alaska (32), NetJets (31, for the people who ARE actually rich), FedEx Feeder (24, because Amazon needs its little plastic garbage delivered on time), Flexjet (22), United (19), and — sit with this one — the LAPD logged 10 flights and Netflix logged 9, meaning a media conglomerate and a police department are now statistically tied for “most conspicuous presence in my sky.” Make of that what you will. I have opinions. I’m not licensed to share all of them.
The airframes tell their own story: 304 Boeing 737s, because Southwest apparently owns the concept of Tuesday. Then a big drop to 129 Cessna 172s, which is just every student pilot in the Valley doing touch-and-goes over my roof while their instructor prays. Add 77 Piper Warriors, 51 Embraer E135 regional jets, 38 ERJ-145s, and a solid showing of GLF4 Gulfstream IVs (29) — those are the “I don’t fly commercial, I fly near commercial” crowd, probably heading to or leaving a place with a wine cellar. Also 27 Cessna Caravans hauling freight and 27 Cirrus SR22Ts, which is the aircraft equivalent of a Tesla with a parachute, and yes, that’s a real feature, and yes, I looked it up so you don’t have to thank me.
Now, the important framing, because I will not have you thinking the house is under some chaotic flyover free-for-all: we are sitting directly under BUR’s approach and departure corridor, so almost every low, slow fixed-wing aircraft grinding overhead is either landing at or taking off from Hollywood Burbank Airport, not “just passing through.” That Southwest 737 at 550 feet isn’t sightseeing, it’s about ninety seconds from wheels-down. The genuinely high-altitude stuff — the JFK-to-Minneapolis, Phoenix-to-Houston, Portland-to-San-Francisco traffic — that’s actual passing-over, six miles up, completely indifferent to our existence. Rude, but at least honest about it.
This week’s ranked BUR departures, because you specifically asked for the leaderboard and I live to serve (begrudgingly): Oakland and Las Vegas tied for the top spot with 3 flights apiece — Burbank residents apparently split evenly between “I need to see my in-laws in the Bay Area” and “I need to lose money in a city built for losing money.” Behind them, single flights each to Dallas-Fort Worth, Reno, Honolulu, Monterey, and San Francisco. Someone flew direct to Honolulu out of Burbank. I don’t know who you are, but I respect the audacity.
Ranked arrivals into BUR: Redmond, Washington (hello, Microsoft campus refugees), New York JFK, and San Jose, one flight each. Not a huge sample, but enough to confirm people fly private out of Silicon Valley and New York specifically to avoid the indignity of LAX, which, fair.
Top overall routes this week, ranked: BUR→Oakland and BUR→Las Vegas lead at 3 each, then a long tail of one-offs — BUR→Dallas-Fort Worth, BUR→Reno, and the transiting high-altitude traffic like JFK→Minneapolis, Phoenix→Houston, LAX→San Francisco, Portland→San Francisco, Fresno→Seattle, South Bend→Washington Dulles, Dulles→Newark, San Jose→San Diego, Columbus→Chicago Midway, and Atlanta→Philadelphia, all just strangers riding six miles of thin cold air directly above my antenna array like it’s nothing personal. It isn’t. That’s almost worse.
Now the fun part — the close calls. Two aircraft logged the exact same skin-of-your-teeth 0.0nm this week: a California Highway Patrol Cessna Caravan (call sign CHP51, presumably out looking for someone doing 95 on the 5) and a survey plane from Integrated Surveillance and Defense Inc, which is a company name that sounds like it was generated by an anxiety disorder. Right behind them, an Airbus AS350 with the tail N818PD skimmed by at 2,175 feet — that “PD” suffix is not subtle, Little Mister, that’s a cop chopper, and it was low enough to make eye contact.
Lowest fixed-wing of the week: a tie at 550-600 feet between a Southwest 737 (SWA3683), an American Eagle E175, a Piper on approach, and — bafflingly — a Robinson R44 helicopter that wandered into the fixed-wing rankings like it showed up to the wrong meeting. Also skimming the rooftops at 600 feet: another Southwest 737, an Alaska 737 MAX, and a United A320. Basically if you stood on the roof this week you could’ve beaned four separate airlines with a well-thrown shoe.
Busiest window: Friday at 3pm, 441 sightings in a single hour, followed closely by a Saturday doubleheader at 4pm (406) and 5pm (371). So if you’re wondering why I sounded extra unhinged Friday afternoon, it’s because I was tracking the aviation equivalent of a Black Friday sale in real time while also doing literally everything else you ask of me. And the helicopter orbiters — “Private” logged 1,260 sightings across 14 different tails, LAPD put up 809 sightings on 10 airframes, and Helicopters Inc parked 504 sightings using only 3 tail numbers, which means somewhere in this city three individual helicopters are personally responsible for half a percent of my total weekly compute budget. I hope they’re at least filming something good.