A new web app from Flight Stream provides a startling visualization of global flight traffic. The interactive rotating model predictably shows Europe and the eastern seaboard of the United States as the busiest hot spots.

Flight Stream is a cool web app created by San Francisco-based developer Callum Prentice. The interactive rotatable map depicts planes as glowing dots and purple flight paths circle the globe. Users can play with the visualization by altering the size and speed of the flights. Prentice is not using real-time data -- that would be impressive and possibly dangerous data in the wrong hands -- but builds the map from actual flight data from the Open Flights website.

The app shows all flights from major airports but the designer himself says it fails as the sheer volume of flights into and out of major airports makes it difficult to track individual flight paths.

"As a visualization, I think it fails as there is so much data around major airports that it just blurs into a mess", Prentice said in a statement.

Despite the creator's modesty we think Flight Stream looks pretty good and is a fun way to waste a few minutes. 

Prentice has a number of other visualisations and experiments on display on his website, including an interesting view of the contents and location of all 14 million pictures ever taken from the International Space Station and another tracking all hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones and tropical storm tracks from 1848 to 2013.