Advice Needed: UK Airspace

I am keen to move up with my flight simming, and begin to take notice of UK airspace. Can anyone give me some advice? The NATS website confuses me and You Tube videoes refer to US airspace, ehich uses different categories. Currently I'm using the 1:1000000 map, this is a typical segment:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/lord_mithras/Aircraft/cc286d15-0ff2-4a10-b5ec-3c08ff09e209_zpsopejzjsx.jpg

Basically, how do I cross Gatwick airspace? I assume I can't enter the inner purple zone unless I'm landing, but I dont know whether to overfly or underfly the outer zone, but at what altitudes? What about Heathrow? It is marked in red (prohibited VFR the key says) yet there are three airfields inside the zone!!

And what about Biggin Hill, the dotted circle -can I overfly that??

Can anyone help!?

You need to 1:250000 mapping. that shows the type and airspace and the its height as well as other details. Most of south-east england is overlaid by Class A airspace starting as low as 2500 ft.

the others airfields within the London CTR are deemed to be SVFR in very limited special corridors from the airfields to the edge of the London CTR.

The citcle around Biggin Hill (and other airfield) designates an Aerodrome Traffic Zones (ATZ)

See Guide to Visual Flight Rules in the UK

https://www.caa.co.uk/docs/64/VFR_Guide_2011_update.pdf

Recent changes to UK airspace

http://www.nats.aero/environment/consultations/london-ctr-reclassification/

There is a substantial airspace `grab` in progress at the present moment that will be to the detriment of GA mobility, infringement and safety. Proposals seek to reclassify Class G airspace to Class D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspace_class#United_Kingdom

I'm sure the mods will move this to a more appropriate place. This has nothing to do with UK flying in FSX. It is pointless trying to apply UK airspace restrictions and routing to a yank-centric flight simulation product as you cannot replicate the routings or restrictions you see on the charts - and if you did you wouldn't need half the addon airports as for GA you won't even get to SEE Heathrow, Gatwick or Southend except from a distance, and for tube flyers you won't need ground enhancements as the new airspace prioritizes rapid climbs and descents into a STAR or SID. In fact given the predilection to route traffic over the sea rather than the land, you probably won't need Mesh, Textures or Landclass - some nice Vector improvements to coastlines is all you will need.

Southern flying in the UK is even more regimented than it is `oop North` so probably the best advice anyone can give you is stay out of the region if you want to fly realistically! The FSX experience is so completely non-representative that its best avoided.

I do still fly for real darn sarf, and frankly wished I didn't - and increasingly head south to France and the relative freedom of French airspace - apart from those Eurocontrol retards who are precisely the kind of people we fought wars to stop...:pilot: