I had a lucky escape not long after I got my licence doing some hour building in California. It was 110degrees on the ground in Maclellan airport, we decided we had enough fuel to get back to California with a 172, thank God we didn't fill it.
Took off with 3 up and bag's. got out of ground effect, next thing was airspeed was reducing from 70kts back to 60kts. We raised the nose and were still simmering down toward the ground. Then the aircraft stopped decending, stayed at the same level for about 20sec's (felt like 20 mins) then slowly, very slowly climed away. We were lucky and I learned from it.