The Navy assigned the bearings a three-year shelf life and required that they be removed at the end of that time, as the plaintiffs' witnesses uniformly conceded at trial. Had the Navy followed its own shelf life policy, the bearing would never have been installed in the helicopter. The Court's assertion that evidence on the shelf life of the bearings was conflicting is simply wrong. This is not a reasonable reading of the manual. It makes no sense to say that a bearing should not be in service more than three years after it was manufactured, but if it is installed in an assembly it will last forever.
Service deteriorates a bearing.
Service certainly does not make a bearing nondeteriorative, and not surprisingly, the Navy manual does not suggest otherwise. This conclusion was refuted at trial by plaintiffs themselves. Q Read the next sentence. Unless otherwise modified by the depot bearing engineer. A That, I do not know.