With the wide application of airborne electro-optical system, the contradiction between the reliability of engineering application of domestic infrared detector and the localization requirement of core components is becoming more and more obvious. Based on the requirement of airborne electro-optical system, research on application validation process of infrared detectors is conducted, and the application verification method including three stages is formed. It′s applied in an airborne electro-optical long-range detection system. The result shows that the method can effectively exposure risks in advance and release them, laying the theoretical foundation for application validation process design, detailed specifications development and equipment engineering application of imfrared detectors.