Tackling the complexity of simulation scenario development in aviation

System complexity is a key characteristic in aviation industry which leads to broad utilization of modeling and simulation in this global business. Scenario development is an important aspect of a simulation study. It starts at the very first steps when the operational scenarios are defined with the stakeholders and ends with a successful simulation execution. Although the importance of simulation scenarios has long been well-known, there still exists a lack of common understanding and standardized practices which lead to degraded interoperability and shareability. There is a recent effort coordinated by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Modeling and Simulation Technical Committee (MSTC) towards development of a standard scenario definition language for aviation. This effort is being challenged by the same system complexity. Ontologies provide means to tackle complexity in domain modelling. This paper presents two distinct ontology based approaches to develop simulation scenario definition language for aviation. They both provide formal bases towards a standard domain specific language for scenario development.