Real-time infrared simulation technology can provide a large number of infrared images under different conditions to support the design, test and evaluation of a system having infrared imaging equipment with very low costs. By synthesizing heat transfer, infrared physics, fluid mechanics and computer graphics, a real-time infrared simulation method is proposed based on the method of characteristics to predict the infrared feature of aircraft plumes, which tries to obtain a good balance between simulation precision and computation efficiency. The temperature and pressure distribution in the under-expansion status can be rapidly solved with dynamically changing flight statuses and engine working states. And a modified C-G (Curtis-Godson) spectral band model that combines the, plume streamlines with the conventional C-G spectral band model was implemented to calculate the non-uniformly distributed radiation parameters inside a plume field. The simulation result was analyzed and compared with the CFD++, which validates the credibility and efficiency of the proposed simulation method. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.