Completely simulated aerospace design

Not sure to what extent this sort of thing is news, but some might be
interested: Dassault have built and produced an aircraft without
building a single prototype; they went straight from computerised design
to production.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ne/4275332.stm

"From the early stages we have been in a position to understand not
only the way that we would design the airplane, but also understand
how we would assemble it, manufacture it, maintain it, how we would
support the aircraft in service.
"All this being anticipated electronically, from design using those
revolutionary tools. ...
"We have been in a position to anticipate and validate electronically
every single critical maintenance task without having to wait for the
first physical parts to be manufactured and assembled." "We have been
in a position to anticipate and validate electronically every single
critical maintenance task without having to wait for the first
physical parts to be manufactured and assembled."

--
-Andrew Gray

It was certainly news to me! I would not have thought it possible.

I will pass the link on to some software developers who might be
interested.

I wonder if it is sustainable. It seems to me that it may have been
successful because of a large engineering experience base developed in
more manual processes. If the streamlined computerised design
processes do not maintain, develop, and improve this experience base
then the firm may find it is unable to duplicate the feat in the
future.

The article did not address how the company went about validating the
software for design simulations initially or for regression testing
purposes.