Thanks Genghis
Some valuable points. I’m sorry to see it has rather turned into a “Solent Zone bashing session”
I've flown in and out of Solent Zone all my flying life. I learned to fly at Southampton and my aircraft is based on a strip in the zone.
One thing that no one has mentioned is the action the controller took was entirely appropriate to the event. Ghengis was turned away and no further action was taken. No harm done: lesson learned.
They are unfailingly helpful to me (and always have been).
Solent were equally helpful (and kind) to me when I was returning to Lee on Solent a month ago. Planning to pass outside the zone and not wishing to break in on a very busy frequency I was listening to Solent Radar but had not called them – all the while flying outbound on the 190 radial from CPT instead of the intended 170. A schoolboy mistake I know, but more easily done than you might imagine. Descending rapidly over what had (out of the thick haze) clearly become Winchester, I responded to the call "Any unidentified aircraft working this frequency approximately ten miles to the north of Southampton descending through 2500".
As with Ghengis, I was turned swiftly away and no further action was taken.
I did however once fly in as a passenger a Jet Ranger and the pilot was just a little bit arrogant with them on the radio. We got a "join downwind left for 20, number seven (yes really, number seven) in traffic".
And finally, the pilot who flew into our strip without so much as a phone or radio call to anyone was swiftly traced and invited to have a little chat with the magistrates in Southampton.
So far as I can see, the moral is pretty clear.