An application of the multiple models adaptive control based on switching and tuning to a flexible transmission system is presented. This approach has been considered in order to assure high control performance in the presence of large load variation on the system. The advantages of the multiple models adaptive control system with respect to the classical adaptive control is illustrated via experimental results. It is also shown that the robustness of the adaptive control system can be improved with the appropriate shaping of a sensitivity function. The use of a parameter estimation algorithm based on the minimization of the closed-loop output error in the multiple models scheme also improves the performance of the system in the tuning phase and makes the adaptation algorithm insensitive to unmodeled output disturbances.