Cessna Citation Sovereign (C680)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action; General Release Refused / Aircraft Not Accepted
Aircraft; Company Policy; Procedure
I wrote-up the rudder bias system this morning for failing the preflight test. Maintenance Control concurred and the aircraft was sent in. Less than 2 minutes after we parked; Contract Maintenance came out to the plane. I explained the problem to him. After he left both myself and my co-captain; noted that he seemed to take the issue personally. Within 5 minutes he was back in the plane; telling us that it had a [test flight] just last week. We both felt he was pushing us; and went so far as to say; 'all I will do is take it out and run it up. If there is movement; I will sign it off.' He stated there was no guidance from Cessna on how much movement. 43 other Sovereigns give a strong rudder bias kick at 50% N1; and this airplane gave nothing until above 60%. In addition; while the engines seemed to spool up normally; the throttles appeared to be advanced much farther forward to achieve 50% or even 60% N1; better than halfway to the cruise detent. It appears to me that something is not correct and needs to be addressed; however I fear that this technician is just going to sign it off. I told the mechanic that I would not fly this plane in this condition. I reported the issue to the Assistant Chief Pilot. He passed it on to the maintenance air boss. He later informed me that this was escalated. This was pushback from an outside vendor who indicated that he was going to sign off the airplane without further investigation. I have seen many fixes from outside vendors that are marginal at best! And when they fail; in-house maintenance who is trained on our aircraft; complete a proper fix to the issue. In my opinion; more in-house maintenance personnel and less outside; marginally trained mechanic will help fix this 800 pound gorilla called Maintenance.
CE-680 Captain reported the aircraft failed the Rudder Bias System Test.