Yakovlev is building a digital engineering environment for the MC-21 that links aircraft design data with testing, production and, ultimately, the configuration and operating history of individual aircraft. The company is using several levels of digital representation, including a digital mock-up, a digital thread and a digital shadow, while a full digital twin for a production aircraft remains a further stage of the programme.
The digital mock-up, or DMU, is already used during aircraft design. Engineers use it to assess component installation, routing of pipes and wiring, access for maintenance and replacement, and potential interference between moving mechanisms. This allows design problems to be identified before the corresponding physical components are manufactured.
Yakovlev also uses a four-level approach to system integration and testing. The ‘virtual aircraft’ uses mathematical models and simulation to assess system integration at an early stage. The ‘electronic aircraft’ combines real equipment with software-based representations of other systems, allowing interfaces to be checked before a complete aircraft is available. The ‘iron aircraft’ uses real structural elements, actuators, control mechanisms, hydraulics and landing gear for ground testing. The final level is the physical aircraft, which undergoes the flight-test programme required for certification.
Simulation is used to examine scenarios including engine failure, crosswind landings, bird strikes, lightning strikes, extreme low temperatures, hard-landing loads, structural fatigue and abnormal hydraulic-system operation. For example, a lightning-strike model can combine the strike location, discharge parameters and skin properties to calculate current distribution, heating and potential damage. The results can then be compared with physical test data.
The next layer is the digital thread, which links requirements, design decisions, engineering calculations, test results, manufacturing operations and operational data. This provides traceability when the aircraft configuration changes. A change to a structural material, for example, can be linked to affected requirements, calculations, documentation, manufacturing operations and tests, as well as to aircraft already fitted with the previous configuration.
Yakovlev has introduced its Chronos system to manage engineering and design documentation, versions and change history. The digital environment also includes a data lake intended to bring together documentation, telemetry, test results, maintenance records and production-system data. The usefulness of such a repository depends on common data structures and identification rules across the organisations contributing information.
A digital shadow adds information about the individual aircraft. Two MC-21s of the same variant can have different equipment configurations, component replacement histories, repair records and accumulated operating hours. Tracking these differences is necessary if engineering models are to reflect the actual condition of a particular aircraft rather than a generic aircraft configuration.
This requirement is particularly relevant as the MC-21 undergoes the replacement of foreign systems and components with Russian-made equipment. Yakovlev reported in 2026 that a change to the type certificate had been approved following completion of the introduction of domestically produced composite materials for structural elements of the vertical and horizontal stabiliser caissons. Each such change requires the digital configuration to identify what was modified, where the modification was incorporated and which calculations, documents and aircraft are affected.
A full digital twin would connect these engineering and configuration records with operational data from the individual production aircraft. Yakovlev envisages its use for condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and analysis of accumulated operational information. The wider digital environment could also provide separate but connected engineering, manufacturing, certification, operational and programme-management representations of the same aircraft.
The transition depends on data quality and interoperability. Sensor errors or incomplete maintenance records can reduce the reliability of analysis, while differences between the data formats and software platforms used by manufacturers, suppliers, airlines and maintenance organisations can interrupt the digital thread. Yakovlev is addressing these issues through common standards and integration solutions within the United Aircraft Corporation. The system also requires computing infrastructure, software licences, trained personnel and protection for data-transfer channels, user accounts and supply-chain interfaces.
Yakovlev therefore has several elements of the digital aircraft environment already in use, including digital design, the DMU, mathematical and hardware-in-the-loop modelling, and engineering-document management. The digital thread, cross-organisational data integration and aircraft-specific digital history are still being developed. The full digital twin represents the next stage, with the aim of maintaining a continuous information link between aircraft design, certification, production, individual aircraft configuration and in-service operation.
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