The invention discloses an aero-optical effect simulator based on a distorted image. The aero-optical effect simulator is composed of a target generation system, a spectroscope, a deformable mirror and an optical projection system. The target generation system is composed of a first lens, a second lens, a third lens and a fourth lens in sequence from one side of an object plane. The optical projection system is composed of a fifth lens, a sixth lens, a seventh lens, an eighth lens, a ninth lens, a first reflector, a second reflector, a tenth lens, an eleventh lens, a twelfth lens and a thirteenth lens in sequence from one side of the object plane. According to the aero-optical effect simulator based on the distorted image, influence on the imagining quality of an optical system of a side window of an aircraft from the aero-optical effect can be simulated in a laboratory, preconditions and bases are provided for analysis and correction of the aero-optical effect, and the method is simple and visual and has much higher precision compared with a traditional computer simulation method for simulating the aero-optical effect.