This standard establishes definitions of the information and format used to exchange air vehicle simulations and validation data between disparate simulation facilities. This standard is not meant to require facilities to change their internal formats or standards. With the concept of an exchange standard, facilities are free to retain their well-known and trusted simulation hardware and software infrastructures. The model is exchanged through the standard, so each facility only needs to create import/export tools to the standard once. These tools can then be used to exchange models with any facility at minimal effort, rather than creating unique import/export tools for every exchange.

The standard includes a detailed convention for representing simulation variables. The purpose of this is to unambiguously describe all variables within the model when it is exchanged between two simulation customers or facilities. The variable representation includes explicit specification of all coordinate systems, units, and sign conventions used. XML is used as the mechanism to facilitate automation of the exchange of the information. Based on the definitions in the standard, a list of recommended but nonobligatory simulation variable names is included in Annex A. This list of standard variable names should further simplify the exchange of information, but is not required for use of the standard.

The standard includes capabilities for a model to be self-validating and self-documenting, with the provenance of a model's components included within the model and transferred with it. Statistical descriptions of the quality of a model may also be included.