🇬🇧 Manchester, United Kingdom
Manchester is a major city of United Kingdom. Real-Earth coordinates 53.475°, -2.249°, population 2,230,000. A river or a coast to follow, tall enough buildings to make a proximity line interesting, and open airspace once you clear the centre. Skydex flies the real Earth here — the elevation, coastline and city layout under the aircraft come from the same data the map does, and the sky is shared with everyone else flying it.
Heard over Manchester last 30 days, by the Skydex receiver network
6,217 aircraft on 31 days · 35,900 sightings (one aircraft on one day) · type known for 6,186 of them.
Counted from what our volunteers’ antennas received — no other tracker involved. About the network · the stations · add yours
Seen on the water near Manchester last 30 days, AIS via the Skydex feed
213 vessels on 25 days · 540 sightings (one vessel on one day) · type known for 183 of them.
📡 41 of them were heard by a Skydex volunteer receiver rather than by the upstream feed. Run one here
Counted from the AIS positions the Skydex feed received here — sampled once a day in local daytime, plus whenever pilots fly here — not a port register. Ship tracking
Airports near Manchester within 120 km, heard by the Skydex receiver network
- Manchester Airport (MAN) · 14 km · 9,010 flights in 30 days
- Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LPL) · 43 km · 1,825 flights in 30 days
- Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) · 58 km · 1,475 flights in 30 days
- Hawarden Airport (CEG) · 59 km · 31 flights in 30 days
- Blackpool International Airport (BLK) · 61 km · 9 flights in 30 days
- Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA) · 82 km · 56 flights in 30 days
Flights are airline flight numbers our receivers heard heading to or from the airport, once a day each — not runway movements. All airports
Activity in Manchester
Visitors came from 3 countries this month.
“Pilots” counts signed-in players; “visits” counts sessions, not unique people.
Flying conditions in Manchester
Sunrise 07:26 · Sunset 16:18 · 8 h 51 m of daylight (local time)
Verdict weighs gusts, precipitation and cold — the things that actually decide whether a drone or a bird has a good time up there. Sunrise and sunset are computed from the city's coordinates, not forecast. Forecast issued 2026-11-11 00:41 UTC and refreshed live in your browser. Weather by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).
Flying weather in Manchester through the year
November in Manchester averages 7.6°C with winds around 16 km/h, and roughly 63% of days are good for flying — about 15 days see rain.
Fewest weather restrictions: April, July, March; September is the most restricted at 45% usable days. (That's about wind and rain, not comfort — check the temperatures below.)
| Month | Avg temp | Wind | Rain days | Good to fly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 3.6°C | 16 km/h | 16 | 48% |
| February | 5.9°C | 18 km/h | 17 | 54% |
| March | 8.1°C | 16 km/h | 13 | 69% |
| April | 10.9°C | 16 km/h | 10 | 82% |
| May | 14°C | 15 km/h | 12 | 65% |
| June | 17°C | 17 km/h | 19 | 52% |
| July | 18.5°C | 15 km/h | 13 | 81% |
| August | 17°C | 19 km/h | 14 | 66% |
| September | 13.5°C | 19 km/h | 19 | 45% |
| October | 11.4°C | 19 km/h | 14 | 58% |
| November | 7.6°C | 16 km/h | 15 | 63% |
| December | 7.2°C | 18 km/h | 16 | 55% |
Based on ERA5 reanalysis. “Good to fly” counts days without strong wind, real rain or hard frost — the conditions that actually ground a drone.
Recent activity in Manchester
Mancbranch visited Wings
David Plant visited Wings
Where to fly a drone near Manchester
🛩 Where to fly a drone in United Kingdom →
What you can do here
- Fly Manchester in an FPV drone or as a gull, from 53.475°, -2.249° — keyboard and mouse, a gamepad, or a real RC transmitter over USB.
- Check the weather first: live wind, gusts and cloud over the city, plus the month-by-month flyable-days table above.
- Watch real traffic — aircraft overhead and ships on the water come from live ADS-B and AIS feeds, not from a script.
- Meet other pilots in the same sky: city chat room, radio, and the walkie-talkie frequency for Manchester.