Flight Test: Proving lethality in the real world

Developing Lethality: Steward of the Digital Thread
Part 4 - Flight Test: Proving Lethality in the Real World

At the edge of innovation, where digital models meet live missions, Air Force testers take to the skies not just to fly, but to prove. To prove a missile works in the heat of battle, software can survive electronic warfare, and when the warfighter pulls the trigger, the system performs as intended.

This is the heart of flight test and where the Air Force Test Center shines.

After examining the foundation of trusted digital models, the rigor of ground testing, and the role of simulation in accelerating design, the final installment of Developing Lethality: Steward of the Digital Thread brings the process full circle, demonstrating how stewardship of the digital thread extends from concept to combat. Flight test and integrated Flag events represent the culmination of the digital thread, where concepts are validated under pressure and turned into combat-ready capabilities.

These are the environments where technology, people and risk converge. Where engineers, aircrew and maintainers unite behind one purpose: to ensure systems work not just in theory, but in the realities of the fight.

AFTC’s 2025 Strategic Plan puts it plainly. AFTC is the Integrating Center. That means taking capabilities from concept to combat with speed, accuracy and confidence.

Pushing Limits: The Flight Test Wings

At Edwards Air Force Base, home of the 412th Test Wing, you will find pilots flying one-of-a-kind aircraft through test points that have never been flown before. In Florida, Eglin crews with the 96th Test Wing rig weapons to jets, track data in real time and make sure every bomb, missile, and button works under pressure.

Test here isn’t just technical. It’s physical, mental, and personal. It’s spending hours in the cockpit knowing that even small deviations can lead to big consequences. It’s analyzing telemetry at midnight. It’s rebuilding an aircraft for one more go.

These wings don’t just deliver reports, they deliver trust. Trust that what is refined in ground test facilities and simulated in software environments can survive the chaos of reality.

Operators in the Loop: Real People, Real Combat Scenarios

Walk into any test squadron today and you’ll likely find a mix of engineers and warfighters. Some bring combat experience shaped by deployments and battlefield decisions. Others bring an engineering analyst’s understanding of physics, system behavior, and the art of the possible which is critical in explaining not just what happens in a test, but why. They ask questions that can’t be answered by specs alone. What if we lose GPS? What if comms drop mid-mission? What if the threat behaves differently?

That mindset makes the test stronger, more real and more lethal.

Fast and Fluid: The Multi-Domain Test Force

Modern warfare demands more than individual system performance. It requires seamless coordination across air, land, sea, space and cyber domains—often all at once. The Multi-Domain Test Force was established to meet that challenge. The MDTF is not a conventional unit. It is a cross-functional team built to integrate, accelerate and connect. Its mission is to ensure that capabilities across air, land, sea, space and cyber domains are tested not in isolation, but as part of an interconnected whole. It serves as a bridge between innovation and execution, embodying the strategic intent to "develop the workforce, tools, and test capabilities required to analyze systems of systems and get relevant answers to decision makers."

Working closely with Air Combat Command and AFOTEC, the MDTF team leads efforts to align and resource the Test Flag Enterprise, including Emerald Flag, Black Flag and Orange Flag. Their role is to ensure these events remain focused on kill-web integration, advanced survivability and operational realism.

This continuous cycle embodies the stewardship of the digital thread, where models are validated through test, and test in turn improves the models. As outlined in the AFTC 2025 Strategic Plan, the goal is to "synchronize Flag events across the Test Enterprise to include sharing tools, models, and data to accelerate flow of results into decisions." The result is a continuous cycle of evaluation that refines digital models with real-world data, uses that insight to avoid unnecessary flight risk, focuses on gaps, and ensures every sortie adds value to future design.

Test Flag Events: Making It Real

Test Flags are not routine events. They are the proving grounds where today’s experimentation becomes tomorrow’s combat capability.

At the heart of these events are Emerald Flag, Orange Flag, Black Flag, and Gray Flag. Each event is specifically designed to stress systems, validate integration, and accelerate innovation across all domains. These are system-of-systems test campaigns that bring together platforms, sensors and warfighters to operate in environments that mirror real-world conflict.

Emerald Flag, conducted primarily in the southeastern United States, is a collaborative, multi-service event focused on strengthening joint-domain effectiveness. It leverages Joint All-Domain Command and Control infrastructure to test and refine how air, land, sea, space and cyber assets work together. The goal is to improve connectivity and speed across the kill chain, ensuring U.S. Forces can outpace and outmaneuver future threats.

Orange Flag, held in the Southwest, is an all-domain, large force test series focused on kill-web integration, advanced survivability, and data-driven experimentation.  Orange Flag test events focus on multi-domain/multi-platform sensors, shooters, and connectivity to identify and analyze kill-chain strengths and weaknesses with a data driven approach.

Black Flag focuses on operational integration, while Gray Flag extends that environment to maritime and Navy collaboration. Led by combat units with strong support from AFTC and the test community, it allows frontline warfighters to experiment with new tactics, techniques and materiel solutions. These are not scripted events. They are operationally representative scenarios built to test survivability, multi-domain execution and tactical adaptability.

Together, these Flags advance four key principles: operational realism, joint and all-domain participation, data-driven analysis and shared resources across services and commands. They are shaping the future force by turning test events into actionable intelligence.

“These events give us a chance to evaluate how systems really interact under stress,” said Lt Col Mark Brodie, MDTF commander. “It’s not just about collecting data, it’s about understanding where integration breaks down and where we can improve. That feedback becomes part of the digital thread, and it helps inform interoperability requirements and shapes what gets delivered to the warfighter.”

In partnership with Air Combat Command and AFOTEC, MDTF helps coordinate and integrate the Test Flag Enterprise. This effort streamlines collaboration and accelerates how capabilities move from evaluation to operational relevance.

All Flag events allow allied participation to strengthen international partnerships, interoperability, expand coalition testing opportunities and ensure that collective defense capabilities remain razor-sharp.

Data collected from these events directly informs acquisition timelines, enabling decisions while changes can still be made. The insight gained helps refine operational concepts and guide the development of the next generation of air, space and cyberspace systems, before it's too late to adapt.

Test Flags are not just a milestone in the process. They are a requirement for readiness. By validating concepts under pressure, they give warfighters confidence that what they are using is not just tested. It is proven.

From the Field Back to the Fight

Test doesn’t stop when something is fielded. If a warfighter halfway around the world sends back a report. If something’s off, something failed, or something could be better, AFTC is still in the loop. The Center listens and responds.

Teams scramble, test again, adjust and push solutions back to the field.

This feedback loop is what keeps the Air Force lethal. It reflects the living nature of the digital thread, constantly updated through test insights and real-world feedback.

Proof Over Promise

AFTC doesn’t deal in hypotheticals. It deals in proof, risk, and people who are willing to fly, fix and evaluate until the data is real and the outcome is sure.

Developing lethality isn’t a slogan. It’s the active stewardship of a digital thread that spans from simulation labs to combat sorties. It’s a responsibility. It’s long days, hard decisions, hard landings and the satisfaction of knowing that when something is needed in combat, it’s ready because AFTC said it is.

“At AFTC, our role as the Integrating Center is more than a title,” said Maj. Gen. Scott Cain, AFTC commander. “It’s a responsibility to ensure every capability we test is credible, connected and combat-ready. Stewarding the digital thread means validating systems at every stage, from simulation to flight, so our warfighters receive tools that perform exactly as intended when it matters most.”

That’s the power of the “Digital Thread.”