"david" wrote in message
...
As already explained by Jim, the readback of pressure is mandatory, you'll
have a violation filed against you if you dont do ti, similarly all
clearances, but thats maybe outside your area of ops, so to speak.

I suspect that it's only in rare cases that you actually get a violation
filed, though the option is there for the controller if he or she so wishes.
However, particularly when a controller is quite busy, he or she will be
annoyed with you, and I've heard some very scathing comments from
controllers to people who've not read back the necessary bits.

Incidentally, do also try not to read back the stuff you don't have to read
back, particularly if you're in a busy area (e.g. Norwich at 11:30 on a
summer Saturday), as it does get in the way if every student in the sky is
telling the controller what the wind's doing.

To continue on the first point, though: do practise your RT, know what
you're doing and what your intentions are, and try to sound professional,
because it does make a difference to the controller's attitude to you. If
you sound uncertain as you call downwind, he'll send you miles away and put
you behind the gaggle of stuff on 15-mile final; if you're crisp and you
know what your next move is, you often find yourself hearing "Call on
finals, number one".

I also find being polite works wonders. For instance, even if it's a nice
day, I like to try the occasional holding pattern and/or ILS or NDB
approach, just in case I need them on a crappy day sometime. I can remember
at least one instance when just before I rejoined my local airport, a
shirty-sounding instructor in an aircraft a couple of minutes closer to the
field than me requested, and was bluntly denied, an ILS approach; I
pretended not to have heard, called up for a rejoin, said something like
"Good afternoon sir, G-XXXX overhead X, routing X, maintaining two thousand
feet; request radar vectors for ILS approach if convenient to yourself", and
was immediately granted my vectored approach.

D.