Accelerating aircraft verification and certification through an integrated virtual and physical testing approach

Aircraft verification and certification entails a variety of testing tasks and requires coordination among numerous stakeholders across different disciplines to ensure alignment on requirements. Historically, certification strategies have relied on both physical testing and high-fidelity simulation. The integration of these complementary approaches is essential to address their respective blind spots and to support credible certification evidence. A key challenge lies in the rigorous correlation of simulation models with physical test data. Flutter verification, for instance, is a critical component in defining the aircraft’s flight envelope and plays a foundational role in certifying safe operational boundaries. In this work, the process of freedom from flutter verification starting from the pre-test analysis is demonstrated. This work introduces a novel approach to combining simulation and test data with the aim to accelerate and streamline the verification process leading to more efficient and cost-effective aircraft development. In addition, it is shown how the flutter verification process can be deployed using a simulation process and data management (SPDM) tool from which tasks are assigned and results are collected allowing transparency about the status of the workflow and providing people access to the data they need when they need it. The workflow is demonstrated using ground vibration test measurement performed on a full-scale F16 aircraft. Throughout the process, simulation data, test results, requirements, and supporting documentation are systematically managed within the SPDM framework. The work described above is an integrated approach that fosters a unified environment, enabling an effective cross domain collaboration between simulation and test engineers while also maintaining a single source of truth for proof of compliance, and progressively build a robust digital thread throughout the development lifecycle.