Há um artigo detalhado e muito interessante da Força Aérea sobre isso: CAPACIDADE DO TOTAL SIMULADOR DE VÔO (TIFS) . O ponto principal é que o TIFS não se limitava apenas a coletar dados aerodinâmicos, mas sim testar configurações de aeronaves (incluindo layouts de cabine) em vôo real e treinar pilotos neles. Aqui estão alguns trechos, mas você mesmo pode ler o artigo para os detalhes completos.
Teste diferentes configurações:
It also surpasses the utility of past variable stability aircraft through the realism possible in its separate, new evaluation cockpit. The capabilities and features of this in-flight simulator considerably broaden the ability of the aircraft designer to deal with difficult trade-offs in flying qualities problems. A base configuration can be set up and then its stability and control characteristics can be systematically varied for investigations to gain research knowledge pertinent to flight vehicle and flight control system design.
Simule várias aeronaves diferentes:
It has been designed to reproduce in actual flight the flying qualities of a wide range of large airplanes.
Teste diferentes configurações de cockpit:
The simulation cockpit is removable, so that it can be replaced by other cockpits of different configurations.
Simule um novo design em voo antes que o novo design seja criado:
Flight evaluations of the flying qualities of new airplane configurations can be accomplished, such as investigation of the behavior of extremely large airplanes. This can be extended to investigating the flight control characteristics of entirely new types of designs, as for example, reproducing the landing approach flight characteristics of a large re-entry vehicle. [...] The flight characteristics of specific aircraft can be simulated in great detail, both to evaluate flying qualities in advance of the first flight of the actual airplane and to investigate difficulties that may arise during the airplane's flight test program.
Pilotos de trem em novas aeronaves:
Finally, a well established and highly valuable use of in-flight simulation is pilot training. In-flight simulation of emergency conditions can be conducted safely because, if the evaluation pilot is having control problems, the safety pilot can switch the system off and resume control of the normal base airplane