What about the old requirement in Germany of 2000’ AGL minimum altitude for cross-country VFR?
Or quadrantal vs. semicircular levels?
Both not entirely irrelevant, but not big factors either. Nobody has ever been busted for one or the other.
What is more relevant is things that make a flight happen or not or which at least have an effect on the required workflow. Like: can I fly without ATS or firefighting staff at the field? Do I need to file a flightplan? What kind of route do they want in my FPL? Do I need startup clearance? Do I need Mode-S? Do I need to call FIS when crossing the FIR boundary? Do I need a permit for an ultralight? Customs procedures? All these things are still more or less country-specific. So yes, international (VFR) touring is still complex, although access to information has become much better.
I would expect Mode S and a flight plan to be de facto mandatory if you want to go anywhere. Anything else is just masochism. There are very few border crossing exemptions and none applicable anywhere near the UK; in fact none applicable if you want to fly in CAS IIRC.
Calling up FIS? We did that before and I have not seen a reg saying calling up FIS is mandatory anywhere, compared with just changing frequency directly from the unit in country A to the unit in country B.
Non-certified is a whole new ballgame – lots of threads on that, not always in agreement 
but the regs are all buried in domestic law which cannot be even googled unless you speak the language to an expert legal level and know how to use google to search foreign countries’ data.
gallois wrote:
Although IMO there is nothing wrong with short trips and I’ve never burger flown I would point out that from this part of Western France in 2019 people I know flew their ULMs to Berlin, Croatia, many places in Italy, Spain, Morocco and Senegal plus all over France.
How do you fly ULM to Spain easily? Does it not require a separate permission for any non-certified?
Yes a separate permission was required as was a flight plan. However the permission was very easy to get. I can’t remember where they said they emailed but I can look it up if interested. There are other rules regarding airports within controlled airspace and height limits AGL.
I can ask friends for.all the details if you’re interested in flying ULM to Spain.
@gallois it would be great to update this thread if you have recent info.
RobertL18C wrote:
European light GA will continue to migrate to the permit/UL scene using grass roots and grass airfields. The Cessna 180/185 may be the Darwinian survivor if you want access to airways from the grass strip and can’t afford the PC12.
Agree totally. Being able to use grass airfields most of the year-round, not just in high summer, is important to get good value out of an aeroplane, where I live in Ireland. I have friends with STOL aeroplanes who go away every weekend and land interesting places, stay the night and live the dream, like Trent Palmer does on YouTube. They are getting great value from their flying and doing it all on Mogas.
If I lived in the UK it would be less important, as the average runway is much longer and surfaces tend to be better. Aeroplanes that can be used in anger off grass strips as their VFR arrival/departure point, fly happily in light IMC en route and can carry 4 or more people are the holy grail for me. Ethanol making the Mogas STC’s obsolete, have been a big setback for VFR flying. There have been lots of positives too like self-declared maintenance programs and iPad apps that make light work of the planning/weather/notam/gar reporting tasks. It’s neither easier or harder, just changing as gallois said there.
It also depends heavily on the country:
In Germany, compared to when I started flying in the mid 80ies VFR flying has become really piece of cake. The airspace structure has become so much simpler (these days we still had lots of military airspaces). GPS makes it much easier to keep away from the few airspaces left. Weather data is now available everywhere (not only in the Tower via Telex/Fax). Same for NOTAMS. Apps have made flight planning much easier – as have GPS and inflight nav computers.
European light GA will continue to migrate to the permit/UL scene using grass roots and grass airfields.
We did this in various other threads but that would take GA down the path it is taking / has taken in Spain and Italy, where (for various reasons, probably mostly to do with economic collapse and/or crazy airspace) it has “collapsed” to grass strips, and a pure hobby where you fly a short distance down the road, probably non-radio and transponder turned off, to meet up with friends, eat and drink, and then fly back. That is perfect if that is what you want to do, live in a country in which that works (not waterlogged for much of the year, is a good start), and probably don’t speak the language of the country next door, let alone have ELP on your license. It is very non-viable if based in the UK; it’s a recipe for chucking it all in pretty quickly.
