"Kobra" wrote in message
...
As I waited for the typical clearance of, "Cessna XXX, 5 miles from XYZ,
fly heading 180, maintain 2000 until established, cleared for the ILS XX
approach." I got, "Ok, just let me know when you want to start the
approach."

Sounds like it was a pretty quiet day and as a result he was being rather
too informal.

I would interpret the controller's instruction as meaning that you're VFR,
and so he's expecting you to make whatever calls VFR requires (e.g. calling
on final for clearance to land). The fact that you're intending to get there
via a route that happens to coincide with the ILS is entirely
circumstantial.

Over the years I've had a lot of informal instructions/comments from ATC,
though generally it's been informal but useful. (e.g. Me: "Blah blah request
joining instructions; please confirm runway in use 27"; Them: "Join however
you want, let me know which runway you'd like though"), though as my local
airfield has become more and more busy with commercial traffic, this is
rarely the case these days. Personally, I prefer it formal; the words to be
spoken have been designed for a very good reason (i.e. to keep them clear
and unambiguous, and thus promote safety) and so they should be used as
such - particularly when informal instructions of the sort that you describe
don't tell you what you actually wanted in the first place.

D.