Support for configuration and instantiation of large-scale aircraft simulations has become a major issue as the numbers of models grow, model fidelity increases and there is a trend to design models to allow reuse between simulation environments. In this work a method for configuration support is presented that is based on the Product Line principles with structures and data inherited from the Product Data Management system. An XML-based information object to carry product configuration data and knowledge between tools, called a CNA-string is introduced. A rule-based method to support specification of consistent configurations is adopted from the sales configuration domain. The application example is configurations of the Gripen fighter aircraft simulation models.