Though designed for long-range engagements, there may be times when the F-35 Lightning II will be forced to get visual confirmation of a target, said Gen. Hawk Carlisle, the head of Air Combat Command.
"Will there ever be a time where you'll have to put your eyeball on somebody to make sure he's what you think he is? There may well be," Carlisle said Friday during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The statement comes as the Air Force is trying to quell criticism that the F-35 is outmatched in close-range dogfights with fourth-generation fighters. Military leaders have repeatedly responded that the aircraft is built for long-range engagements, and is never meant to get near enemies.
Carlisle, however, said that should an F-35 ever have to get visual confirmation of a target, the Air Force is working on a number of strategies and technology — some classified, some not — that would allow the plane to survive and complete its mission.
"We are doing everything in our power — again, strengths of what the United States brings and what our air power brings — we're doing everything in our power to use everything we can to do situational awareness, which includes combat ID and positive ID on what that adversary is," he said.
Technology could also help identify adversaries without the pilot having to see the target with the naked eye, such as electronic identification or satellite imaging, Carlisle said.
At the annual Air Force Association Air and Space Conference, several experts on RPAs also noted that drones could be used to close with an enemy and confirm targets before the F-35 engages.
The Lightning II will perform well in air-to-air combat, but wasn't designed for dogfighting, the general said.
"It's not that it can't do it, it's just that it wasn't designed to be a maneuvering airplane," Carlisle said. "It doesn't have vectored thrust and it's a single engine airplane. It is different."
F-22s were designed to be air superiority fighters. But depending on the F-35's payloads and electronic capabilities, Carlisle said he could envision a scenario where the plane could out-perform a Raptor in aerial situations.
He said the same thing happened with fourth-generation fighters.
"F-15 was really designed as an air superiority fighter. Yet depending on what the configuration was and what block the F-16 was, in a visual maneuvering engagement, the F-16 could outmaneuver an F-15," he said. "That was a fact of life: one was air superiority, one was multi-role, but it kind of got reversed."
Carlisle said he has no doubt Air Force pilots will push the F-35 to the limits and find abilities the aircraft has that weren't envisioned before.
"You take advantage of the strengths your airplane has and you try to do everything in your power to try to minimize what it doesn't' have," he said. "The young men and women we put in this airplane will figure out how to take advantage of its strengths and minimize its limitations."
