PERHAPS THE AMERICAN public can only digest one helicopter-related story at a time, but the Marine Corps’s recent announcement that the controversial V-22 Osprey will soon be deployed to Iraq–which captured national headlines–is overshadowing a simmering scandal in the Air Force’s CSAR-X competition.

CSAR stands for Combat Search and Rescue. The Air Force currently operates 102 Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters to perform that mission. The HH-60s average 25 years old, and the service is desperate to replace them. Last November, the Air Force announced a winner in the competition to select a replacement: the Boeing HH-47, a new variant of the venerable Chinook.