Inside the Air Force highlights

Some must-reads from this week's issue of Inside the Air Force:

1. DAYTON, OH -- The program executive officer in charge of the Air Force's fighter and bomber fleets said this week his directorate is facing a significant modernization bow wave that is making it difficult to balance aircraft availability with the need for improved capability for an aging workhorse fleet.

Full story: Aircraft modernization bow wave driving availability concerns

2. DAYTON, OH -- As the Air Force looks for opportunities to use new rapid prototyping authorities, the service's acquisition executive said this week he's concerned early failures could lead to pushback from within the service and from lawmakers.

Full story: Roper concerned about failure response as USAF embraces section 804 authorities

3. DAYTON, OH -- The Pentagon's top research official is assembling a group of liaisons to the services as they pursue the science and technology priorities laid out in the National Defense Strategy, an Air Force Research Laboratory official said this week.

Full story: Top-level liaisons, outside experts to help drive joint tech development under NDS

4. DAYTON, OH -- The Air Force's battle-management program executive officer was tapped this week to become the service's first PEO Digital as the service seeks to spread agile development and operations to a wide range of software programs.

Full story: New PEO Digital to lead service-wide Agile DevOps implementation