The idea of a universally-understood flight dynamics data package has been discussed for at least two decades, within the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) technical committees. There have been proposals in the past to standardize on FORTRAN as well as proprietary, vendor-specified modeling packages (including graphical ones). The National Aerospace Plane (NASP) program, under the guidance of Larry Schilling of NASA Dryden, came up with a combination Web- and secure FTP-based system for exchanging NASP subsystem models, as well as a naming convention for variables, file names, and other simulation components. Some simulation standards have been proposed by the AIAA and are under active consideration at this writing.
The AIAA has published a Recommended Practice concerning sign conventions, axes systems, and symbolic notation for flight vehicle models [AIAA92 ].
The AIAA Modeling & Simulation Technical Committee has prepared a draft standard for the exchange of simulation modeling data. This included a methodology for accomplishing the gradual standardization of simulation model components, a mechanism for standardizing variable names within math models, and proposed HDF as the data format. [AIAA01 ], [AIAA03]