Steep Turns and the "Burning Ring of Fire"

On May 11th it was time for something new. Steep Turns. That's pretty much anything with a bank angle greater the 35 degrees. I wasn't worried about the possible sensation of feeling like I was going to fall out the door on a steep left turn. I knew that the G's would hold push me down in my seat. A different sensation than in a car. Once again proving that an airplane is not a "flying car." My initial concern about them was that I thought that I would overbank. That was not to be. Without going into a long, and possibly boring explanation about turns, let's just say this: When the airplane turns it will lose altitude unless the pilot corrects by applying back elevator pressure. The steeper the turn the more back pressure needed. When I entered my steep turn, we used 45 degrees, all appeared well. It was fun to pull those G's. Then my instructor pointed out our vertical speed. A 1000 ft/min descent. I was supposed to be holding altitude in the turn. I got serenaded with, "You're going down, down, down, like a Burning Ring of Fire." I guess he expected this. A few more tries and I managed to get a little better at getting the back pressure right. But if I didn't pay enough attention we entered a tight downward spiral and I got the song again. It was all to break the tension of course. I found it very funny.
The rest of the lesson went well. We are slowly ramping up my responsibilities when it comes to the radio and navigation.