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The emerging Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Architecture Analysis & Design Language (AADL) standard is an architecture modeling language for real-time, fault-tolerant, scalable, embedded, multiprocessor systems. It enables the development and predictable integration of highly evolvable systems as well as analysis of existing systems. This paper discusses the role and benefits of using the AADL in the process of analyzing an existing avionics system. We use the AADL to describe architecture patterns in the system being analyzed and to identify potentially systemic issues in the system. We discuss some of the findings related to timing, scheduling, and fault tolerance and the benefits of the use of the AADL. Additionally we highlight the benefits of working with architecture abstractions that are reflected in the AADL notation, in particular the separation of architecture design decisions from implementation decisions. Such a light-weight architecture analysis is typically followed by a full-scale AADL model of the system with required and actual timing, performance, and reliability figures, and its analysis to determine whether the requirements are met.