Great write-up over at Computerworld about Tip Slater of Analysis Modeling Simulation Experimentation, part of The Boeing Company's Integrated Defense Systems group of which he's director. From the article:

Can you describe what your job entails?

I belong to an organization called Analysis Modeling Simulation Experimentation. Our job is to create an environment in which we can test out concepts and ideas for our customers, the majority of which are military. If a customer wants to try a wartime scenario, he can't afford to fly or move all the military [equipment] that he wants, and you can't afford to blow it up either. So, we provide an environment where we bring in live, simulated and computer-generated entities.

Our job is to pull together this synthetic environment so that we can test out a concept or a hypothesis. For example, we can actually take an F-16 flying over the desert in southern California, and the pilot will see on his radar scope all of the virtual and computer-generated entities that we have in the environment. So, we've got a real plane that gets the signatures in his cockpit that state that there are other entities working around him, when in fact those entities are digital [creations]. And that allows us to put the assets into an environment and test them out. So it gets to be a very complicated environment.

It's an in-depth story about the advanced application of virtual models for test scenarios, and very worth reading!

[Via Computerworld]