The German Timber Express 2026 military exercise served as a testing ground for a new concept in which real combat aircraft share the battlespace with pilots in simulators and computer-generated allies and adversaries. During the exercise, Airbus Defence and Space tested its System Development Lab in this type of environment for the first time, demonstrating a system that could fundamentally change the development, testing and training of future combat platforms.
When German Tornado and Eurofighter aircraft took to the skies during the annual exercise, one of their primary tasks was to test the tactical exchange of data between different platforms. This year’s edition, however, also introduced an important virtual component. Airbus’ System Development Lab, or SDL, injected simulated friendly forces and threats into the live exercise, allowing aircraft crews to see and interact with them as if they were physically present in the airspace.
The demonstration was based on the Live, Virtual, Constructive concept, commonly known as LVC. The “live” element consists of real aircraft, crews and other physical systems, while “virtual” refers to human participants operating from simulators. The “constructive” component includes computer-generated platforms, sensors, threats and other entities within the scenario.
According to Airbus, Timber Express demonstrated that the SDL can act as an engine for generating these synthetic elements and seamlessly integrating them into a live training environment. A pilot flying a real Eurofighter can therefore encounter virtual hostile aircraft, cooperate with simulated uncrewed combat platforms or respond to threats that exist only within the digital system.
This approach offers significantly broader possibilities than a conventional flying exercise. Organising complex scenarios involving large numbers of real aircraft is extremely expensive and logistically demanding, while it is often constrained by the availability of crews, airspace, fuel and other resources. By expanding the exercise virtually, it is possible to create a much larger and more complex battlespace at only a fraction of the cost of deploying every required platform in the real world.
The digital environment also allows systems that are not yet operational—or have not even been physically produced—to participate in exercises. The SDL could, for example, simulate a future uncrewed combat aircraft designed to operate alongside crewed fighters. Pilots and commanders can therefore begin testing its potential role, operational concept and exchange of information with existing platforms well before it enters service.
Virtual exercises provide another important advantage. Armed forces can test sensitive tactics, procedures and capabilities without fully exposing them through publicly observable activities in real airspace. Airbus particularly highlights operational security, or OPSEC, as some of the most advanced scenarios can remain within a controlled digital environment.
Secure and uninterrupted information exchange nevertheless remains essential to the entire concept. During Timber Express, an important role was played by the SDoT product line developed by infodas, which enabled systems operating at different security classification levels to communicate with one another. This allowed sensors, effectors, command systems and tools for generating virtual participants, such as the SDL, to be connected within a single environment.
Without this level of interoperability, the live and virtual platforms would remain separate worlds. The objective is for a pilot in a real aircraft to receive a credible situational picture in which physical and simulated elements appear as parts of the same operation.
The potential applications of the SDL extend beyond training. Airbus sees the system as a tool that could accompany future combat platforms from their earliest design stages through final testing and operational training. Instead of developing an aircraft or another system as an isolated product, its capabilities could be assessed from the outset within a broader, multi-domain environment.
The SDL can simulate operations simultaneously involving air, land, maritime, space and cyber forces. Such scenarios could examine how an upgraded Eurofighter or a next-generation combat aircraft would perform with the support of uncrewed platforms, aerial refuelling aircraft, command systems and ground-based air defence systems.
The system can automatically conduct thousands of accelerated “Red versus Blue” combat simulations and statistically determine which combinations of equipment, tactics and force structures produce the best results. In other scenarios, real pilots and battle managers can take control from dedicated simulator stations, adding their experience and operational judgement to the computer-generated analysis.
The results can then be returned to the development teams. This creates a continuous feedback loop in which design decisions are assessed, adjusted and tested again until the system meets real operational requirements.
Airbus also links the concept with the issue of European technological and defence sovereignty. Europe’s future air power will have to modernise existing platforms such as the Eurofighter while simultaneously introducing new combat aircraft, uncrewed systems and advanced communication and command networks. Their effectiveness can no longer be reliably assessed in isolation, but only as part of an interconnected ecosystem.
Timber Express 2026 demonstrated how live exercises could eventually evolve into significantly larger, digitally enhanced battlespaces. Real aircraft and their crews will remain irreplaceable, but their operational environment will increasingly include allies and adversaries that exist only in computer simulations. This is set to transform not only military training, but also the entire process of developing, testing and validating future combat capabilities.
