[ryandrake]

ATC in real life can be surprisingly forgiving, too, depending on a lot of things (weather, their workload, if there's a lot of local flight training, and so on). There are a lot of things they will of course insist on though, like reading back hold short instructions and assigned runways. If you call up for routine VFR flight following on a not-busy day and accidentally forget some bit of info like your altitude, they'll just ask for it no big deal.

[NavinF]

Yeah I think a lot of people forget that students talk on the radio on their first flight. Controllers in real life are used to people talking too casually and not knowing the right phrases. You can also say "student pilot" after saying your first line if you want them to speak slower

[throw0101c]

Steve Thorne, aka "Flight Chops", had a couple of videos a few years back with an ATC guy on helping pilots not be so intimidated:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg90PF4mWJs

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxb8RTdl6Y

As a bonus video, see also this crawl-thru of a B-29:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XakK81edKFA