I often hear that people find the UK confusing / difficult to fly.
It would be useful to go over some of the things that cause this.
Let me kick off with military airspace (AIAAa and MATZs) which is marked all over the charts but which is not CAS to civilian traffic, and which can be flown through non-radio (it is Class G) except that it is a very good idea to be in contact with a radar unit in the area.
However e.g. Belgium seems to be a host to the world's biggest airforce and the VFR charts is almost totally covered in the stuff. I am sure Belgian pilots will laugh and say that actually it's easy 
Yes, private flying is just so different across european countries. This applies particularly to VFR flyer and to a lesser extent to IFR flyers, but still.
The thing is: what one will find "confusing" does not only depend which country you are flying in, but also, which country you are coming from, aeronautically speaking. What is taught in PPL training is so dramatically different, because it is 99% centered on flying within the country you happen to be learning in.
Let me make a few points from the perspective of a german private pilot, when coming to the UK for the first time (note: not saying what is good and what is bad, just pointing out the things that people find confusing, based on their prior knowledge).
The same applies to airspace Alpha - doesn't exist here. A german VFR pilot is not used to being vertically as restricted as in most of UK airspace. Except from the (rather small) terminal areas, he is used to having the full band of airspace from GND to FL100 to his full disposal, without talking to anybody.
You mention MATZs. UK is full of them, and the thought of busting a militarly airspace makes a german PPL shudder. Therefore, looking at the chart, they tend to have the impression that airspace is very GA-unfriendly and "cluttered". No PPL on a one-off visit to the UK has the time to go so deep into the labyrinth of UK air law to understand that civil traffic does not require clearance in order to cross an MATZ.
Another one is danger areas...a german PPL will fly through a danger area without clearance. Not good if you do that in UK...
Or: The concept of towered (i.e. "controlled") airports witout being surrounded by controlled airspace (Shoreham and the likes) confuses people.
So, some things are actually worse than they like like on the chart (EG-Ds), some are actually easier as they seem (MATZs). But again: nobody can reasonably study all that for a one-off visit. Remember that a german pilot would have to do the same thing with dutch, belgian and french publications - just for a single short visit to southern England!
Airfields: A german pilot is not used to the concept of after hours flying - or even to farm strips. All that doesn't exist here (unfortunately...). A basic german PPL will feel very uncomfortable landing at an airfield without at least an A/G operator responding to him.
The same is true for the completely intransparent array of ATC stations, namely FIS, LARS and civil approach control (APP) stations. On a cross-country, one might be handed over been all the three of them. Who has radar and who doesn't? Who is in charge for what?
Overhead join: doesn't exist in Germany and causes a lot of confusion.
Booking-in / booking-out. A german will say: What the hell do they want?
High-Vis. An unknown concept in Germany (fortunately!).
QFE. Not used in motorized flying in Germany.
Busy GA airfields closing at, say, 1700 local. Unheard of here in Germany.
PPR-mania. Why PPR for an airport that is regularly manned and open???
The whole GAR thing with its different authorities to send them to with different PN requirements. (Note: Given the circumstances (i.e. UK being non-Schengen) the GAR system is great as such, but for a foreign flyer, it is implemented awfully.)
The massive amount of superfluous radio chatter on FIS/LARS/APP frequencies.
What is an AIP for if it misses 85% of all "regular" airfields?? Again, this is related to the UK distinction between licensed and unlicensed aerodromes.
Just to name a few...:-)
Again, it boils down to the fact that a spare-time PPL cannot reasonably dig into all these things so deeply before flying. Thus, he will have a lot of "surprises" the first time he comes over.
I agree, having flown with a US instructor here a few months ago the things he found astonishing were:
I am sure Belgian pilots will laugh and say that actually it's easy
It IS easy - in the weekend, when USUALLY our military are not active. On weekdays it IS confusing, with some military airspace permanently active, CTR's and TMA's and TSA's and what not, others only per Notam. But, even in non-controlled airspace, one gets good briefing from Brussels information. (and, as I hear say but never tried, even better from Belga Radar).
As for the UK: what I find most confusing is that there is not a one-to-one relation between some given place in the air, and the radio service that is in charge. As I understand it, in uncontrolled airspace one has a certain degree of freedom what frequency one contacts, and it seems useful to prepare a list of operators that can and will provide best service.
Regarding overhead joins: it is a natural habit to me, but one has to know which fields launch gliders on a winch. Joining overhead gives the best likelihood of being seen by as many pilots as possible, both flying or preparing to. And do not tell me about radio: one should never take radio for a certitude. Some planes have none, perfectly legally, and some have an unreliable one, which is worse. Also, when joining overhead one gets a good view of the signal square (if present).
Regarding overhead joins: it is a natural habit to me, but one has to know which fields launch gliders on a winch. Joining overhead gives the best likelihood of being seen by as many pilots as possible, both flying or preparing to. And do not tell me about radio: one should never take radio for a certitude. Some planes have none, perfectly legally, and some have an unreliable one, which is worse. Also, when joining overhead one gets a good view of the signal square (if present).
I think this is one subject where there is a big difference between faster and slower aircraft. I can certainly see with your aircraft and other smaller GA types that what you say is true. In a faster aircraft I think it reduces your ability to get a good view as you have major turns, pitch and pitch trim changes at a point where you should be looking out for traffic. Give me the 45 degree from downwind join any day.
I think I have flown in some 20-25 countries so far. By far, the UK had the largest number of idiosyncrasies. It's a system that suffers from a long history and evolution and thousands of special rules for which nobody knows the reason anymore. A clear candidate for a cleanup and simplification.
From a "what is possible" and "freedom" perspective, the UK get a A- (would be an A if there was a sensible amount of controlled airspace so one could do proper IFR without major detours and not this nonsensical PPR habit). From an "easy to access" perspective it's a C at best. If I fly to e.g. Slovenia, I need to spend 2 minutes preparing for local rules, in the UK it would be hours. It's all doable and then it works great but one of the nice things about ICAO standardized (IFR) GA is that one can fly anywhere without much preparation. For a one-off or occasional visit, the UK is too complicated.
This "what type of service" stuff is ridiculous, especially since the service you then get is in the low 10 percentile in Europe. And getting 8 squawk codes within 1h and a mix of QNH and QFE (plus refusal to do the conversion for you) doesn't make much sense either. However, I was flying and I was going fast and direct. Not much to complain about
I found the UK fairly easy for VFR. Just called the nearest LARS, then I got handed over, all radio operators were very helpful.
The things that slightly puzzled me:
A basic german PPL will feel very uncomfortable landing at an airfield without at least an A/G operator responding to him.
Most germans seem to be very uncomfortable finding out the runway to use from the windsock, or by listening on the airport frequency to find out which runway the others use. They seem to need someone on the ground telling them what to do.
On the other hand I can't take some "Flugleiter" of small airfields handing out clearances like Frankfurt Tower very seriously...
Hello!
I haven't done any VFR flying in the UK in the last years, but I also fondly remember the "what service do you request?" inquiry. One time I asked: "What services are on offer?" and the controller read back the textbook description of the variuos types of services for almost five minutes. By the time he had finished we were about to leave his sector.
The "standard overhead join" (not to be mistaken with the informal overhead joins in the rest of the world) is also a wonderfully miraculous thing. Performing this maneuver one has about twice the probability of colliding with other traffic in the pattern as with a simple 45 degree downwind join, yet "this is how they do in the RAF" and therefore it's gonna stay.
The high viz jackets have already been mentioned. Pilots from the UK are easily recognized all over Europe for being the only ones who wear them (but as I wrote in another post this is forced upon those poor souls by the ICAO Chicago convention ;-) )
Also very weird is "state your aircraft type on first contact". After having just flown IFR all across Europe where every other controller on the way could figure that out by himself just looking at the screen in front of him. Don't they have radar screens in the UK?
Another very strange things are the two-stage ILS clearances: "On this heading join the localiser and report established" .... "localiser established!" .... "cleared to descend with the glide, call tower ...". Especially in the London area where radio traffic is already close to the limit this effectively doubles the number of radio transmissions for no reason at all.
You forgot one thing: "Contact London 123.45 and report your altitude". I think I got that about 5 times on my trip. First of all it is standard practise in IFR to report your altitude on the initial call and your next waypoint, second don't they have radar screens that would show this information and third isn't that part of the coordination before you get passed on to the next sector?
don't they have radar screens that would show this information
They probably do, the altitude report serves the purpose of comparing the altitude you read from your analog altimeters with what the transponder encoder gives them, so they know whether to trust your static port.
This is probably getting somewhat useless these days, gilham code is somewhat dying and most modern transponders have a FL display so you can verify yourself, but it's still required practice.
