Court Opinion

ID: 9783685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:58:59.57641+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:31.642783
License: Public Domain

SUE WALKER, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I. INTRODUCTION
In its second issue, Appellee Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. argues that the trial court erred by submitting question 6, the design defect question, to the jury. Specifically, Bell claims, and the Majority Opinion holds, that Bill Hinds’s testimony is the only evidence in the record that a safer alternative windshield design was feasible in .1997 when the Bell 407 helicopter at issue was manufactured. I cannot agree that Hinds’s testimony is the only evidence supporting the feasibility of the safer alternative design element of the windshield design defect claim asserted against Bell by Appellants. Even excluding Hinds’s testimony, the remainder of the testimony and the evidence in the fifty-nine volumes of the reporter’s record contains more than a scintilla of evidence that a safer alternative design — either a 0.14-inch stretched acrylic windshield or a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield — was technologically and economically feasible in 1997, that the safer alternative design would have significantly reduced the risk that the black vulture would have penetrated the helicopter’s windshield intact and killed Captain Damian, and that use of the safer alternative design windshield would not have substantially impaired the Bell 407’s utility.1 Accordingly, I dissent. I concur *163with the remainder of the Majority’s Opinion.
II. EVEN DISREGARDING HINDS’S TESTIMONY, LEGALLY SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE EXISTS TO SUPPORT SUBMISSION OF QUESTION 6 TO THE JURY
A. Standard of Review
We may sustain a legal sufficiency challenge only when (1) the record discloses a complete absence of evidence of a vital fact, (2) the court is barred by rules of law or of evidence from giving weight to the only evidence offered to prove a vital fact, (3) the evidence offered to prove a vital fact is no more than a mere scintilla, or (4) the evidence establishes conclusively the opposite of a vital fact. Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Co. v. Martinez, 977 S.W.2d 328, 334 (Tex.1998), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1040, 119 S.Ct. 1336, 143 L.Ed.2d 500 (1999); Robert W. Calvert, “No Evidence” and “insufficient Evidence ” Points of Error, 38 Tex. L.Rev. 361, 362-63 (1960). In determining whether there is legally sufficient evidence to support the finding under review, we must consider evidence favorable to the finding if a reasonable factfin-der could and disregard evidence contrary to the finding unless a reasonable factfin-der could not. Cent. Ready Mix Concrete Co. v. Islas, 228 S.W.3d 649, 651 (Tex.2007); City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802, 807, 827 (Tex.2005).
B. The Court’s Charge
Question number 6 submitted the following question to the jury:

QUESTION NO. 6:

Was there a design defect in the helicopter at the time it left the possession of Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. that was a producing cause of the injuries in question?
A “design defect” is a condition of the product that renders it unreasonably dangerous as designed, taking into consideration the utility of the product and the risk involved in its use. For a de*164sign defect to exist there must have been a safer alternative design.
“Safer alternative design” means a product design other than the one actually used that in reasonable probability—
1. would have prevented or significantly reduced the risk of the occurrence in question without substantially impairing the product’s utility and
2. was economically and technologically feasible at the time the product left the control of Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. by the application of existing or reasonably achievable scientific knowledge.
Answer “Yes” or “No.”
Answer: [the jury answered, “yes ”]
C. Other Testimony and Evidence in the Record
The crash at issue occurred when a 3.5-to 4-pound black vulture hit the 0.10-inch as-cast acrylic windshield of a Bell 407 helicopter being flown by Captain Damian. All experts agreed that the maximum speed that the Bell 407 could have been traveling at the time of the bird strike was 120 knots. The bird penetrated the helicopter’s windshield, making a hole in it, and entered the cockpit intact. Several pictures of the bird and the helicopter’s windshield were offered into evidence; they showed the bird intact and a hole straight through the helicopter’s as-cast acrylic windshield. The bird struck Captain Damian in the head and either killed him or caused him to lose consciousness so that he slumped over the helicopter’s controls.
In its second issue, Bell claims that Hinds’s testimony is the only evidence in the record that a safer alternative windshield design was technologically and economically feasible in 1997 when the Bell 407 was manufactured. Bell claims that neither of Hinds’s proposed safer alternative designs — a 0.14-inch stretched acrylic windshield or a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield — were technologically feasible (1) because the stretched acrylic windshield was too heavy to be used in a light, Part 27 helicopter like the Bell 407; (2) because insertion of a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield into a Bell 407 would require “hundreds and hundreds” of pounds of structure to be added to support the polycarbonate windshield; and (3) because a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield would not stay in the windshield frame in the event of a bird strike but instead would push through the frame into the cockpit.
As set forth below, even excluding Hinds’s testimony, more than a scintilla of evidence exists proving each of the vital facts necessary to support the safer alternative design element of the windshield design defect claim submitted to the jury in question 6.
1. Technological Feasibility
The jury’s finding that a safer alternative windshield design — a 0.14-inch stretched acrylic bird-impact resistant windshield or a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield — existed in 1997 when the Bell 407 at issue was manufactured is supported by the evidence set forth below. Most importantly, prior to 1997, Bell itself manufactured bird-impact resistant windshields for some of its helicopters.2 Bell’s manufac*165ture of bird-impact resistant windshields prior to 1997 is some evidence that it was teehnologically feasible for Bell to manufacture a bird-resistant windshield in 1997 for the Bell 407 by the application of existing or reasonably achievable scientific knowledge that Bell itself possessed.
Although Bell asserted at trial that polycarbonate windshields were not technologically feasible because they suffered from clarity and durability issues, Bell developed a coating via a study it concluded in 1994 that eliminated all of the clarity and durability issues Bell had encountered with polycarbonate windshields.3 And coating a windshield does not add appreciably to the thickness of the windshield; “[t]he coating is very thin one mil. It’s within tolerance *166of the structural ply, so the coating — if you coat a polycarbonate ply, it does not increase the thickness appreciably.”
Although Bell asserted at trial that neither of the proposed safer alternative windshields — a 0.14-inch stretched acrylic bird-impact resistant windshield nor a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield — were technologically feasible because they weighed too much, testimony and evidence was adduced that neither of the safer alternative design windshields are much heavier than the 0.10-inch as-cast acrylic windshield that was in the Bell 407.4
Although Bell asserted at trial that installation of the safer alternative design of a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield was not technologically feasible because it would require the addition of “hundreds and hundreds” of pounds of structure to the Bell 407 to support the windshield, after the accident at issue here, Bell in fact did install a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield in a Bell 407. Absolutely no structural changes were made to the Bell 407 prior to installing the 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield,5 and certainly not the *167addition of “hundreds and hundreds of pounds of structure.”6
2. Economic Feasibility
Several witnesses testified that both a monolithic polycarbonate windshield and a stretched acrylic windshield were economically feasible in prior to 1997.7
3. Either of the Safer Alternative Design Windshields Would Have Significantly Reduced the Risk of the Occurrence in Question
Had the Bell 407 been equipped with either of the safer alternative design bird-impact resistant windshields — either a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield or a 0.14-inch stretched acrylic windshield, instead of the 0.10-inch as-cast acrylic windshield it did possess — in reasonable probability, the vulture would either have not come through the windshield or would have been liquefied or broken into pieces so that Captain Damian was not killed.8 Polycarbonate is more bird-impact resistant than as-cast acrylic because it is more flexible and absorbs more energy.9 Stretched acrylic is more bird-impact resistant than as-cast acrylic be*168cause heating and stretching the acrylic causes the cross-linking molecules to line up and results in a more impact-resistant material.10 A 0.10-inch stretched acrylic windshield would have significantly reduced the risk of the occurrence in question, and a 0.14-inch stretched acrylic windshield would have prevented the vulture from penetrating the windshield intact.11
Although Bell asserted at trial that a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield would not have prevented the occurrence in question because, according to Bell, the windshield would have pushed through its frame into the cockpit of the helicopter, Bell based this assertion on non-bird-strike testing that the jury could have found flawed and disbelieved.12 The non-bird-strike testing that Bell did per*169form in preparation for this litigation involved dropping fifty pounds of lead from a crane onto a square piece of 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate mounted in a wooden frame.13 And even Bell’s non-bird-strike testing constituted some evidence that a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield would not have shattered upon impact with the 8.5- to 4-pound vulture — since it did not shatter upon impact with fifty pounds of lead traveling at the same or greater velocity as the vulture and in a more dangerous, downward angle of attack than the vulture.
4. Use of a Safer Alternative Design Windshield Would Not Impair the Bell 407’s Utility
In 1999, after only two months of work, Bell produced and installed a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield in a Bell 407 for a company called Air Logistics. Although Bell asserted at trial that to accomplish this feat would require the addition of hundreds and hundreds of pounds of structure to the Bell 407, altering the utility of the Bell 407 by changing it from a lightweight Part 27 helicopter *170into a heavier, less maneuverable Part 29 helicopter, the evidence conclusively established that, in fact, Bell made no structural changes to the Bell 407 in order to install the 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate bird-impact resistant -windshield.14 Additionally, Bell did not inform Air Logistics of any of the concerns Bell expressed at trial — that the 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield in the Bell 407 would push through into the Bell 407’s cockpit in the event of a bird strike.15
D. Application of the No-Evidence Standard of Review
In short, even excluding Hinds’s testimony, more than a scintilla of evidence exists supporting every fact that the jury was required to find in question 6 to support the safer alternative design element of the windshield design defect claim. Considering all of the above evidence favorable to the jury’s safer alternative design finding because a reasonable factfin-der could, and disregarding the sometimes contrary and conflicting evidence propounded by Bell’s long-time employees and. experts because a reasonable factfinder could, more than a scintilla of evidence exists supporting the jury’s finding that a safer alternative windshield design existed for the Bell 407 in 1997. See Cent. Ready Mix Concrete Co., 228 S.W.3d at 651; City of Keller, 168 S.W.3d at 807.
The above evidence — that prior to 1997, Bell did manufacture numerous bird-impact resistant windshields; that in 1994, Bell developed a coating that solved its problems with polycarbonate windshields; that in 1976, Bell was able to design and manufacture a bird-impact resistant windshield for the Bell 222 to meet European bird-strike standards; that Bell successfully made a 0.10-inch polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield for the Bell 407 in 1999 within two months after it began its attempts; and that Bell ultimately did not make any structural changes to the Bell 407 in order to install a 0.10-inch polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield in a Bell 407 — constitutes more than a scintilla of evidence that it was technologically feasible in 1997 for Bell to manufacture a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield for the Bell 407 by the application of existing or reasonably achievable scientific knowledge. See Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Co., 977 S.W.2d at 337 (holding testimony that competitors were already using the safer alternative design and the fact that the company switched to the safer alternative design one year after the accident was evidence of its feasibility); Temple Eas-Tex, Inc. v. Old Orchard Creek Partners, Ltd., 848 S.W.2d 724, 732 (TexApp.-Dallas *1711992, writ denied) (holding that evidence of actual use of a safer design by the defendant or others at the time of manufacture is admissible on the issue of defective design and is strong evidence of feasibility). More than a scintilla of evidence also exists that a polycarbonate windshield could have been made economically as early as the 1970s; Bell’s own expert testified that cost was not an issue with a material as inexpensive as polycarbonate. Because all of the experts agreed, and even Bell’s testing confirmed, that a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield or a 0.14-inch stretched acrylic -windshield would have caused the 3.5- to 4-pound black vulture either to bounce or glance off of the windshield, to merely crack the windshield, or to penetrate the -windshield in a liquefied form or in pieces, all of which would have prevented the occurrence in question, more than a scintilla of evidence exists that either of the safer alternative design bird-impact resistant windshields would have significantly reduced the risk of the occurrence in question. See Bryant v. Giacomini, S.p.A., 391 F.Supp.2d 495, 501 (N.D.Tex.2005) (recognizing that defendant’s expert’s admission that alternative design reduced risk was sufficient to allow jury to reasonably conclude that existence of safer alternative design was economically and technologically feasible). Bell’s subsequent success in manufacturing and installing a polycarbonate windshield in the Bell 407 without adding any structural weight to the helicopter is more than a scintilla of evidence that a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield would not, and in fact did not, jeopardize or diminish the utility of the Bell 407. See Allen v. W.A. Virnau & Sons, Inc., 28 S.W.3d 226, 232-33 (Tex.App.-Beaumont 2000, pet. denied) (holding that “the documentary evidence submitted by appellants shows the same model tractor with the ROPS [Rollover Protective Structure] and the seat belt as standard equipment is some evidence, certainly more than a scintilla, that the combination system did not jeopardize or diminish the utility of the tractor”). Because, even excluding Hinds’s testimony the evidence is legally sufficient to support submission to the jury of the safer alternative design element of the windshield design defect claim, I would overrule Bell’s second issue.
III. CONCLUSION
I would hold that the evidence is legally sufficient to support submission to the jury of the safer alternative design element of the windshield design defect claim in question 6. Because the Majority Opinion holds otherwise, I respectfully dissent.
I concur with the Majority Opinion’s disposition of Bell’s other issues and of Appellants’ issues.

. I also disagree with the Majority Opinion’s holdings that Hinds was not qualified to testi*163fy concerning a safer alternative windshield design and that his opinions were speculative and conclusory or not based on sound engineering principles. All of these holdings by the majority are premised on the erroneous premise that Hinds was required to build and to test a prototype windshield. But no requirement exists, however, that an expert in a design defect case have actually designed and built the available safer alternative design in order to be qualified to testify to a safer alternative design. See Gen. Motors Corp. v. Sanchez, 997 S.W.2d 584, 592 (Tex.1999) (holding expert qualified to testify to safer alternative design, upholding jury finding of design defect, recognizing that expert was qualified to testify concerning safer alternative design, and stating that "the plaintiffs did not have to build and test an automobile transmission to prove a safer alternative design”); Gen. Motors Corp. v. Burry, 203 S.W.3d 514, 527 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2006, pet. denied, pet. abated) (rejecting contentions that expert in design defect case was not qualified because he " ‘last worked in the automotive industry over twenty years ago and has no experience with side airbags’ ” and " 'never ran a crash test with side impact airbags, never designed a side impact airbag, never designed a vehicle with side impact airbags, and never wrote any papers about side impact airbags’ "); see also MCI Sales & Serv., Inc. v. Hinton, 272 S.W.3d 17, 30-31 (Tex.App.-Waco 2008) (same, also holding "the Plaintiffs did not have to build and test a prototype to prove a safer alternative design"), aff'd, 329 S.W.3d 475 (Tex.2010), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 131 S.Ct. 2903, 179 L.Ed.2d 1246 (2011). Indeed, the Majority Opinion holds that Hinds’s testimony constitutes no evidence specifically because it was not based on testing of a 0.14-inch stretched acrylic windshield or a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield in a Bell 407. But I do not address these issues because, even excluding Hinds's testimony, more than a scintilla of evidence exists concerning the safer alternative windshield design element of question 6 so that the trial court did not err by submitting the question to the jury.

. Tom Gailey — Bell’s expert on the structure of the Bell 407, a Bell employee who had worked for Bell for twenty-three years at the time of trial — testified that in the early 1980s, Bell manufactured and sold Bell 222 helicopters with bird-impact resistant windshields in the United Kingdom because, at that time, the UK required bird-impact resistant wind*165shields. Gailey testified that he was not sure if the Bell 222 bird-impact resistant windshield was polycarbonate; "it may have been.” Since 1975, European regulations have required bird-impact resistant windshields on helicopters weighing 6,000 pounds or more; the Bell 407 weighs 5,500 pounds.
Steven Webster, Bell’s director of advanced technologies and processes, testified that Bell began manufacturing the Bell 222 with the heated bird-proof window assemblies in 1976 for sale in Europe but did not put that windshield in the Bell 222s being sold in the U.S.
Gailey testified that Bell had also manufactured a bird-impact resistant windshield for the Bell 609; it was a "two-ply polycarbonate with an adhesive — it[’]s called PVB adhesive — between the two plies of polycarbonate. And then there’s a ply of tenth-inch glass on the outside, and it also has a layer of adhesive between it and the outer layer of polycarbonate.” The polycarbonate layers of the Bell 609 are each approximately one-fourth-inch thick, that is, 0.25 inches thick. The entire bird-impact resistant windshield for the Bell 609 is 0.75 inches thick and weighs approximately thirty pounds per side of the front windshield.
Webster testified that in the 1970s, Bell also manufactured a UH-1 helicopter with a 0.25-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield.
Steven Scott Cline, a project engineer who had worked for Bell for twenty-eight years at the time of trial, testified that in 1997 and 1998, Bell was manufacturing bird-impact resistant windshields for military helicopters. The windshields were made of stretched acrylic with a hard coating applied.

. Webster testified extensively about the results of an "Abrasion Resistant Canopies” study (ARC study) that Bell had conducted and concluded in 1994. The study worked with coatings for windshields and documented Bell’s discovery of a coating for polycarbonate that addressed the UV protection issues, the rain shedding issues, the chemical resistance issues, and the scratching issues sometimes encountered with the use of polycarbonate windshields. Webster testified:
Q. Okay. In your ARC study in '94, which was three years before this Bell 407 was manufactured, you determined that you had coatings that would enhance UV protection, rain shedding, chemical resistance and protection against scratching, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. And that included the coated polycarbonate, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. So in '94, you had a coating that you could put on, including polycarbonate, that was satisfactory to you in dealing with these problems, didn’t you?
A. It addressed all those problems, yeah, trying to make it better.
Q. Three years — three years before — because those are your only criticisms of polycarbonate. So y’all had that solved in '94, three years before this helicopter that two of these people's family members died in was manufactured, correct?
[[Image here]]
A. This technology was available for many years.
Q. My point is, you had a satisfactory coating that solved the criticisms you had for polycarbonate three years before this aircraft was manufactured that these people crashed in, correct?
A. It addressed those issues, yes.
Q. Okay. So now all that’s left is, would the polycarbonate have stopped the bird or not, correct?
A. I'm — I'm not — I'm not going — I can’t answer those questions for you-—
John Raffo, Appellants’ coatings expert, identified several different coatings for polycarbonate that were available prior to 1997 and would have worked well on a 0.10-inch polycarbonate windshield for the Bell 407.

. According to Bell’s expert Dr. Gary Thompson, the bird-impact resistant windshield that Bell placed in the Bell 222 in 1976 weighed twenty-six pounds, only eighteen pounds heavier than the existing as-cast acrylic windshield in the Bell 407.
Concerning the weight of polycarbonate, one of Appellants’ experts Anthony Bosik, an aeronautical engineer and principal in Bosik Consultants Limited, the company that operates the National Research Council bird cannon, testified:
Q. Briefly, let's talk about the different weights between the materials, the substance. This is still — we’re still in the 1976 report [the 1976 report prepared for the U.S. Army was admitted into evidence as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit 104], What would be your response to the criticism that polycarbonate is much weightier and would be much heavier?
A. It is not, it is just slightly heavier.
Q. Okay?
A. As one can see, 12.7 versus 13.8.
Q. And this was known back in at least since 1976, and has everyone really kind of known that all along?
A. Yes.
The 1976 report prepared for the U.S. Army contains the following abstract:
Bird impact results graphically demonstrated that the polycarbonate prototype provided the superior resistance, i.e., resistance to bird strikes at speeds up to 120 knots while the standard acrylic windshield was incapable of defeating a bird strike at the UH-1 [a Bell helicopter] cruising speed of 90 knots.
In general, the superior mechanical properties and the flight worthiness of the coated polycarbonate configuration have been demonstrated.

. Webster testified that once Bell started working on it in 1999, they formed the Bell 407 polycarbonate bird-impact resistant windshield in about two months. Allan All-man, a staff engineer who had worked for Bell for a total of thirty-eight years at the time of trial, testified that in 1999, Bell had installed a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield in a Bell 407 and admitted that there were no structural changes to the Bell 407 prior to installation of the polycarbonate windshield.
Gailey also testified that since the accident at issue in this case, Bell had manufactured a Bell 407 with a polycarbonate windshield and that it had not required any changes to the structure of the helicopter.
Webster testified:
Q. Well, we’ve heard in this case about, well, if you want to put a polycarbonate in a light helicopter you've got all these structural issues. Tell me what structural changes were made in the 407 that the military is flying around with right now with a polycarbonate windshield in it?
A. Mr. Fisher, I can’t answer that.
Q. You can't?
A. No, sir.
Q. But do you — assume with me that that's one of the issues in this case, that's been made in this case, is you can’t put polycarbonate in these things because it might come out of the structure. It *167might — if it stops the bird, the whole windshield is going to come out, you’re going to have to change the whole structure.
A. Not necessarily.
[[Image here]]
Q. But my point is this: And that is, you can’t tell the jury that any structural changes had to be made to the 407 to put the polycarbonate windshield in it, can you?
A. There were no structural changes made to the OH-58D or the 407 in trying to put a polycarbonate windshield in it.

. Concerning the structural changes allegedly necessary to the Bell 407 to support a bird-impact resistant windshield, Allman testified:
If you want to be able to take this load [a bird-impact resistant windshield in a Bell 407] you’ve got to get it back to the middle. You’ve got to take all the energy — they call it sheering out. So what you do is you add a bunch of weight, which I have never calculated — and as I said in my deposition hundreds and hundreds of pounds. I don’t know the exact weight and — it’s a lot. Anyway, you take whatever that weight is, and you put it here. And then you have to get that so it will support that bird windshield so it will be bird proof.
Webster intimated that the structure of the Bell 407 would have to be "beefed up” if the existing 0.10-inch as-cast acrylic windshield were replaced with a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield, but he could not say what structure needed to be "beefed up.”

. Raffo testified that a polycarbonate windshield could have been made as early as the 1970s; a monolithic polycarbonate replacement windshield for the Bell 407 could have been manufactured by Sierracin for approximately $2,000 to $3,000. Raffo testified that the cost of as-cast acrylic [the material used in the Bell 407 helicopter's windshield] and polycarbonate are "roughly similar in costs.” Bosik testified that “polycarbonate and as-cast actylic are both the same costs.” Webster testified that although Bell did "nothing” to develop a polycarbonate windshield in the Bell 407 from 1976-1994, "cost was not a factor” in Bell's decision, "Especially on something as inexpensive as a polycarbonate product.”

. Dr. Warren Wandel, Bell's accident reconstruction expert, agreed that it was undisputed and that Bell's experts agreed that had a 0.10-inch polycarbonate windshield been in the Bell 407 at issue, the windshield would not have broken when impacted by the vulture.

. Bosik testified that “polycarbonate is able to absorb a lot more impact, because it is more flexible. It deforms more during the impact and is therefore able to absorb more of the energy than, let's say, the acrylic.” Bosik opined that polycarbonate transparencies are substantially more resistant to bird impact than as-cast acrylic transparencies; "for a bolted edge situation the polycarbonate gives you about three times the impact resistance of as-cast acrylic,” and for a clamped edge situation, the impact resistance of a polycarbonate frame is even significantly higher.
Raffo testified that ”[p]olycarbonate is the most impact-resistant plastic polymer that is *168used in aircraft transparencies. It's efficient because it has a good impact resistance at a thin thickness, which means that the weight is reduced.” Polycarbonate windshields were used in the F-16 starting in the mid-1970s.

. Raffo testified that ”[f]rom an impact point of view, as-cast acrylic is the least resistant material. Stretched acrylic would be die next strongest material, and polycarbonate would be the ultimate.”

. Bosik testified that in 1978, he published a study on bird impacts on monolithic aircraft windshields where he tested the velocity necessary for a bird to penetrate as-cast acrylic, stretched acrylic, and polycarbonate windshields. His study was introduced into evidence as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit 98. Based on the tests he conducted, in the late 1970s Bosik participated in the development of a mathematical equation to predict penetration velocity of these materials based on the thickness of the material and the weight of the bird being fired at it. Bosik read from a 1976 report that the U.S. Army had produced concerning tests it had done on the Bell UH-1 helicopter and that it had provided to Bell in 1976. The report concluded that ”[b]ird impact results graphically demonstrated that the polycarbonate prototype provided the superi- or resistance.” Based on the Army’s tests in 1976 and Bosik’s mathematical equation, a 0.10-inch polycarbonate windshield would have defeated a 120-knot strike by a four-pound bird.
Concerning whether a stretched acrylic windshield design or a polycarbonate windshield design would have in reasonable probability prevented the approximately four-pound vulture from penetrating the windshield of the Bell 407, traveling at a maximum speed of 120 knots in such a way that it struck and killed Captain Damian or knocked him unconscious, Bosik testified:
il. And what did you conclude with respect to the penetration velocity of either stretched acrylic or polycarbonate in this particular accident?
A. Basically the stretched acrylic in the same thickness probably could have survived [a] 100 knot test. But stretched acrylic is a feasible material as well as far as the windshield goes. The thickness would have to be increased a little bit from what it is, to an estimated .14 inches.
Q. So for stretched acrylic they’d only have to go from .1 to . 14?
A. For polycarbonate a . 1 inch thick, which is the same thickness, would increase the penetration velocity from about 60 or 70 to about 200 knots.
Q. So for the polycarbonate material, as far as the thickness that we see here with respect to the windshield, it — it could have been the same size?
A. Yes.
Q. And that was feasible at the time this helicopter was manufactured?
A. Yes.

.Allman, one of Bell’s staff engineers, was asked what would happen if a polycarbonate windshield was placed in a Bell 407, a bird hit it, and the polycarbonate did absorb the energy and prevent the bird from penetrating the windshield. He answered:
A. If you put a large enough polycarbonate window and mount it on the Bell structure so that the bird’s energy will be absorbed, that energy that it absorbs is past the point that the structure can handle and it will buckle, then the windshield will break loose, because the structure is given away underneath the load of the windshield.
Q. So windshield structure buckles and windshield breaks loose; is that fair?
A. Yes, sir.
*169Q. Okay. Now, tell the jury every test that you’ve run, every equation you’ve done, every bird Bell’s fired, you or Bell has fired at a tenth of an inch polycarbonate windshield in a 407 structure.
A. Mr. Webster answered that, and my answer will be the same. Is we have not done any bird-strike tests.
[[Image here]]
Q. So wouldn't you agree, sir, that — that you or Bell have performed no tests, done no studies, done no experiments to support the opinions that you’re giving today that the windshield will come out?
A. We have done no tests on the 407 to support that opinion.

. Bosik testified regarding Bell’s testing in preparation for this litigation. He explained that to form its opinion that a 0.10-inch polycarbonate windshield would not stay in the windshield frame following a bird strike, Bell mated a polycarbonate square to a square frame made of wood, hoisted a fifty-pound lead weight up by a crane, and dropped it on the framed polycarbonate. The piece of polycarbonate stayed intact but was pushed down through the wooden frame holding it. Bosik explained that the load Bell used to do this test was improper because the lead "in no way simulates a bird.... Because the consistency of it is not correct.... For a first approximation of a bird, you would assume a liquid, as opposed to a solid. So a bird is more like an orange than an apple.” Bosik said that Bell did not perform the testing to ASTM’s standards for bird impact testing "because they should be using a bird or a simulated bird and that should be conducted at the right speed. In addition to that, it should be a representative of structure and it should be conducted at the right attitude; that is, the same flight path as the aircraft would be.” Additionally, Bell’s testing utilized a wooden frame, rather than the steel-type frames used in the Bell 407 and also no evidence exists that the mating with the wooden box utilized an extra 1.5 inch interface as required by Hinds’s design. Consequently, Bosik concluded, "I don't think this test has any validity whatsoever.”
Dr. Gary Thompson testified for Bell that the bird in this case hit the Bell 407 with 2230 foot pounds of energy. He said that amount of energy is what Bell was trying to replicate in its testing by dropping fifty pounds of lead on a square of polycarbonate. Dr. Thompson testified:
Q. You're from east Texas. Did you ever hit lovebugs on your windshield?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. When you hit them on your windshield, which way does the bug shoot up? Which way did the starburst of the bug happen?
A. Typically goes up with the air flow.
Q. It doesn't stay intact, obviously, right?
A. Most bugs will not, no.
Q. Because bugs are partially liquid, right?
A. Yes.
Q. Like a bird?
A. Yes.
Q. How much liquid is in that 3.5 pound vulture?
A. I am not a vulture expert, I couldn't tell you that.
Q. Probably a lot more than in this, say, lead sack that they have duct taped up, right there?
A. I would have to agree with that, yes.

. Recall that Allman, Gailey, and Webster, all testified that in 1999, Bell had installed a 0.10-inch monolithic polycarbonate windshield in a Bell 407; no structural changes to the Bell 407 were required prior to the installation of the windshield.

. Allman admitted that although Bell had, subsequent to this crash, put a polycarbonate windshield on a Bell 407 that was forwarded to Air Logistics, Bell had not warned Air Logistics of Bell’s opinion that a bird strike would cause the window structure to collapse and the windshield to enter the cockpit. He was then asked;
Q. So back in '99, you know, or you told this jury that it[’]s common sense to know that if a bird hits a polycarbonate it’s going to knock it out of the structure and it's going to be potentially dangerous or fatal to the pilot. You sent it down to Air Logistics, had them fly around in it, you didn't tell them about it, and you didn’t even change the structure on the 407 for that first windshield, did you?
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A. When we sent it down to Air Logistics, we did not and are not sure now that it endangers anyone.