We were remarking only the other day how beautifully clear the skies were during the recent volcanic ash flight ban. So far we've seen a couple of projects that have used the suspension of the UK airspace for inspiration...

Olie Kay (he of our B-Line Monograph that featured covers from his grandfather's squadron magazine produced during WWII) sent a lovely sky blue poster our way, featuring a brief paean to the lack of contrails up there.

And then we saw this interesting animation of the flight paths – or lack of them – over Europe during last week. 

The map data is CC-by-SA openstreetmap.org and contributors. The CC-by-SA visualisation was produced by itoworld.com with support from ideasintransit.org

Airspace Rebooted by ITO World is, according to ITO's Vimeo page, a "visualisation of the northern European airspace returning to use after being closed due to volcanic ash. Due to varying ash density across Europe, the first flights can be seen in some areas on the 18th and by the 20th everywhere is open. The flight data is courtesy of flightradar24.com and covers a large fraction of Europe. There are a few gaps (most noticeably France) and no coverage over the Atlantic, but the picture is still clear."

Over on magCulture, Jeremy also linked to a new project from writer and editor, Andrew Losowsky. Called Stranded, it looks to be a magazine put together on theme of being stuck somewhere because of the ash cloud. Submissions to date are largely written projects, but Losowsky has also uploaded a preview of this rather fine image by Matt McArthur.

If anyone else was suitably inspired by the criss-cross-free blue skies of last week, then let us know.