Air Traffic Controller at Atlanta TRACON · Atlanta, GA
From the other side of the radio. When I ask you to say airspeed, I am not testing you. I am trying to fit you into a gap that closes in ninety seconds. Fast readbacks and honest numbers save everybody a vector.
The honest numbers part matters. If I say I can do 210 to the marker I had better actually be able to do 210 to the marker.
Genuinely useful. As a low time instrument pilot I always assumed a question meant I had done something wrong.
Almost never. If you have done something wrong you will know, because I will use your full call sign and my patient voice.