I did my first trip abroad (to Berlin) a couple of years ago and was very apprehensive. My advice would be to go for it, its no where near as difficult as you might think. We likened it to having a red carpet rolled out in front of us.
We started further north than Breighton and we went further into Europe, however our route was very similar to that suggested by Zulu Alpha - in fact we flew directly OH Ostende after an overnight stop in Calais.
My suggested route would be Breighton - Wickenby - Conningsby - Mildenhall - Earls Colne - Southend - DVR -KOK - Ostende.
If you want to stop for GAR and fuel before crossing FIR boundary Lydd or Headcorn are good choices.
If you want to minimise time over the Channel you could route DVR to Calais. Just be sure to route around the Gravelines prohibited area to the east of Calais.
Our biggest challenge of the whole trip was coasting in at Calais where we were told to report at Papa Charlie. We were still using the UK Southern Chart at that point and could find no reference to PC. However we eventually managed to get Calais ATC to explain that PC was Port de Calais - which just happened to be where we were orbitting whilst frantically trying to dig the French charts out from the back of the aircraft.
The second challenge was who to talk to enroute from Calais to Berlin. We had bought Jeppensen 1;500,000 charts are we were struggling until we realised that each section of airspace had a reference number printed beside it, and there was a table on the back listed the agencies and frequencies.
If I was doing it again I would use Skydemon for the planning. This will give you a list of all the frequencies as part of its PLOG. Drop me a PM with your email details and I can email you a PDF copy of the Skydemon plog.
Last edited by 140KIAS; 17th June 2010 at 21:31.