Citation Excel (C560XL)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Aircraft
I was assigned to a CE560XLS. The aircraft had just been released from maintenance and was still inside the [maintenance hangar]. While the aircraft was inside the service center's hangar I conducted my preflight. The aircraft was parked in such a location that I was easily able to reach the horizontal stabilizer. There had been some recent discussion among the pilot group that several aircraft were exhibiting wear to the tailplane mounting bushing. Due to the ease of access I decided; for the first time; to see if there was any play in the tailplane assembly. I was quite suprised to see that I was easily able to move the entire horizontal stab fore and aft approximately one half to one inch. I contacted several of the service center technicians and asked them to observe the movement; none of them seemed too concerned about the movement. More than one technician stated that the tailplane shakes quite a bit especially upon using the thrust reversers and that some wear was to be expected. I completed my preflight and flew the aircraft to its destination where it was assigned to another crew the following day.[About ten days later] I was detailed to collect a [different] CE560XLS; from the [an authorized] service center. It had been flown there under a ferry permit in order to repair excessive wear to the horizontal stab bushing. Upon reading the entry for this repair I was reminded of the freeplay that I discovered on [the first aircraft] some 10 days earlier. I decided to see how much this newly repaired tailplane moved and was surprised to find how firm it felt in comparison to the freeplay in [the first aircraft]. This discovery leads me to believe that the freeplay in [the first aircraft] is excessive. I understand that mechanical components wear and tolerances are published for this purpose; however; I cannot help but believe that if [the first aircraft] was inspected it may be found to exceed any limits set in place. [A few days later] I voiced my concerns to my chief pilot [who] informed me that he was aware of the issue of excessive wearbeing found by Cessna and that Cessna was repairing aircraft as they were discovered. To this date; Cessna has not offered crews a way of evaluating what is acceptable and what is not when conducting a preflight inspection. Years ago Piper had a similar problem with their PA28 series aircraft. In this case it was easy for the pilot to discover as the offending flight surface was at waist level; however in the case of the CE560XL series aircraft discovery requires the use of a ladder which is not part of a normal preflight thereby allowing the condition to go unnoticed for many flight cycles.While the two aircraft that I have mentioned have both been XLS models I believe the problem exists across the entire CE560XL series. I cannot say what is contributing to this condition; all I can say is that it is quite alarming to see the difference between a freshly repaired aircraft and one that has not been repaired.  At this time crews have been provided with no guidance from Cessna as how to address this issue.  As more crews become aware of this issue and start using ladders for their prefight inspections I think we'll see a larger number maintenance actions being initiated. Crew education is needed.
CE-560XL Captain expressed concern about what he feels is excessive horizontal stabilizer free play he has noticed in several CE-560XL aircraft during preflight.