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Model-based systems engineering: SysML, digital threads, verification and validation

How models replace copied documents across an aircraft programme: SysML on a brake-by-wire system, digital threads and twins, verifying and validating with models and judging their credibility, what EASA and the FAA have said, and what the Columbia investigation teaches. Part 4 of the Systems engineering and safety series.

By Aerospace Garage Desk · Managing it · 45 minutes · 24 narrated pages

What you will be able to do

  • ✓ Explain model-based systems engineering using the INCOSE definition and NASA guidance, and state what a model is and is not.
  • ✓ Read the main SysML diagram types on a brake system and use sequence and parametric views to check timing and energy against requirements.
  • ✓ Describe the digital thread, the digital twin and configuration control of models, and read a traceability dashboard critically.
  • ✓ Separate verification and validation of the product using models from verification and validation of the models, and apply the NASA-STD-7009B credibility and reporting rules.
  • ✓ Summarise what the FAA and EASA have published on model-based development and simulation as evidence, and build an illustrative MBSE adoption case.
  • ✓ Draw the model-credibility lessons of the Columbia investigation and connect all four parts of the series.

Course content

Session 1 · From documents to models: why MBSE

1.1

  1. Why model-based systems engineering · free preview
  2. What a model is, and what it is not
  3. The V-model, re-drawn as a model
  4. Worked example: counting the copies of one fact
Session 2 · SysML essentials on the brake system

1.2

  1. SysML: a language, not a tool
  2. Structure: blocks, ports and parametrics
  3. Behaviour: activities, states and sequences
  4. Worked example: a timing budget from a sequence diagram
Session 3 · Digital thread and digital twin

1.3

  1. The digital thread: one authoritative source for each fact
  2. Digital twins: models that stay connected to the real thing
  3. Configuration and change control in a model
  4. Worked example: reading the traceability dashboard
Session 4 · Verification and validation with models

1.4

  1. Simulation as evidence: two levels of verification and validation
  2. In the loop: model, software and hardware
  3. Credibility: what NASA-STD-7009B asks
  4. Worked example: a parametric brake check against hand and test
Session 5 · Using models in certification

1.5

  1. What the authorities have said: models in software assurance
  2. Simulation as a means of compliance: what EASA has proposed
  3. The organisational side: tools, skills, cost and traps
  4. Worked example: an adoption business case
Session 6 · When models mislead, and the series wrap-up

1.6

  1. Reading a model result like a reviewer
  2. What to watch: the model-based frontier in 2026
  3. One brake system, four parts: the series in one thread
  4. From the investigation file: the Crater model and Columbia, 2003
  • MRO deals and approvals, 5-11 Nov 2026

    3 · World n/a

    Aviation Week and AviTrader, 9-11 Nov 2026

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Who this course is for

  • Systems, avionics and safety engineers at airframers and suppliers moving requirements, architecture and interfaces from documents into SysML models
  • Certification, verification and test engineers who must judge whether simulation and model results can count as evidence
  • Engineering managers and chief engineers deciding whether, where and how to adopt MBSE, digital threads and digital twins

You need: Parts 1 and 2 of this series (systems engineering, requirements and the V-model; safety assessment) or equivalent experience; Part 3 is helpful but not required.

Upskill courses are for professional development and are not approved by any aviation authority. Learner Terms

Course content © Aerospace Garage Limited. All rights reserved.