An A320 captain entered the preflight performance data and apparently skipped the climb performance ...

Narrative:

As the aircraft was leveling at 370 with the autopilot and autothrottle engaged; the flight attendant brought our breakfast to the cockpit. The captain was monitoring the aircraft while I got out of my seat to open the door and retrieve the meals. After sitting back down in my seat; I glanced down at the airspeed and saw it rapidly decaying to green dot. I then looked at the airspeed window on the display management panel and noted that a speed of 205 KTS was displayed in the speed window. I made a callout to the captain of 'airspeed.' we did not have enough thrust to stop the airspeed from deteriorating; so the captain disconnected the autopilot and lowered the nose to accelerate. As he lowered the nose; he began a gradual descent. He then instructed me to call ATC and ask for a block altitude. As he was asking me to call ATC; center called us and asked us our altitude and we requested a block altitude of 330-370. The request for the block altitude was granted. I was quite busy monitoring the airspeed and radio; but I believe we descended 500-600 ft to get the airspeed back and start climbing. We climbed back up to 370 without any further incident.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An A320 Captain entered the preflight performance data and apparently skipped the Climb Performance page and entered 205 KTS as the Cruise Performance airspeed parameter which resulted in a speed loss during transition from climb to cruise.

Narrative: As the aircraft was leveling at 370 with the autopilot and autothrottle engaged; the Flight Attendant brought our breakfast to the cockpit. The Captain was monitoring the aircraft while I got out of my seat to open the door and retrieve the meals. After sitting back down in my seat; I glanced down at the airspeed and saw it rapidly decaying to green dot. I then looked at the airspeed window on the display management panel and noted that a speed of 205 KTS was displayed in the speed window. I made a callout to the Captain of 'airspeed.' We did not have enough thrust to stop the airspeed from deteriorating; so the Captain disconnected the autopilot and lowered the nose to accelerate. As he lowered the nose; he began a gradual descent. He then instructed me to call ATC and ask for a block altitude. As he was asking me to call ATC; Center called us and asked us our altitude and we requested a block altitude of 330-370. The request for the block altitude was granted. I was quite busy monitoring the airspeed and radio; but I believe we descended 500-600 FT to get the airspeed back and start climbing. We climbed back up to 370 without any further incident.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1117919
Time
Date	201309
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.ARTCC
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A320
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	FMS/FMC
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 240 Flight Crew Total 15500 Flight Crew Type 4000
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Speed All Types

An A320 captain entered the preflight performance data and apparently skipped the climb performance page and entered 205 KTS as the cruise performance airspeed parameter which resulted in a speed loss during transition from climb to cruise.