Word broke yesterday that a revolutionary, "all-seeing" Air Force surveillance system had flunked key tests on its way to the war zone. But today, the Air Force and military insiders are saying most of the system's kinks have already been worked out – and that the flaws lay in the tests themselves.

Gorgon Stare sensor is supposed keep watch over a "city-size" area from nine or more different angles. If it works, it'd be one of the biggest leaps in aerial intelligence since Predator spy drones started flying.

But testers at the 53rd Wing at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida claimed in a draft report that the Stare was "not operationally effective" and “not operationally suitable.” Alleged problems included poor-quality video, glitches in the process for downloading video streams, and a small problem of the drone blinding itself with a laser. The testers recommended delaying Gorgon Stare's imminent deployment to Afghanistan in order to fix the bugs.

>'That’s like trying to evaluate orange juice using a telescope.'

But many of those bugs have *already *been fixed, the Air Force shot back. And others ... well, aren't bugs at all, the flying branch insisted. Instead, they reflect unfair expectations of an otherwise useful system.

"The document leaked was a draft memo that was later revised in January," Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Johnson said in a statement. "The January memo includes three issues that we have identified and have fixes in place."

One of the three issues was a matter of paperwork. The others were related to ground-terminal compatibility and Gorgon Stare's ability to produce accurate map coordinates. With those tweaks, Gorgon Stare will be a massive upgrade over today's sensors, Johnson added.

But the testers also complained of poor video quality – so bad, they said, that Gorgon Stare could track vehicles, but not people. The testers' implication was that Gorgon Stare should deliver the same high-resolution video as today's "soda straw" drone sensors, but over dozens of square miles instead of just a few acres.

Thing is, Gorgon Stare was never really meant to do that. The "imagery is not as good as some would hope, but you can't do wide-area and narrow-area with same resolutions at one time ... [that's] a foul," one source close to the program complained.

It's one of several ways that the "the test program was not sufficiently constructed to objectively evaluate the capabilities of the system," the source continued. For example, Gorgon Stare is designed to detect motion. The testers looked at still-frame resolution – which, of course, wouldn't show movement. "That’s like trying to evaluate orange juice using a telescope."

Privately, military officials believe that top Air Force generals may have oversold the program a bit. For instance, Air Force intelligence chief Maj. Gen. James Poss recently told The Washington Post that, with Gorgon Stare, "we can see everything" across a city.

Not exactly. You can't see everything at the same time – and certainly not with the same fidelity you might get with a more focused lens.

"He really stuck his foot in his foot in his mouth with that one," one military official said of Poss' claim.

But the official remained comfortable with Gorgon Stare's progress. The problems noted in the December report were serious, but about what you'd expect before a new, cutting-edge gets its first wartime test. "It's fairly consistent with where a program at this stage should be."

Photo: Air Force

See Also: