> Australian Military Helicopter Simulation
>
> This is supposedly a true story from a recent Defence Science Lectures
> Series, as related by the head of the Australian DSTO's Land
> Operations/Simulation division.
>
> They've been working on some really nifty virtual reality simulators,
> the case in point being to incorporate Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters
> into exercises (from the data fusion point of view).  Most of the
> people they employ on this sort of thing are ex- (or future) computer
> game programmers.  Anyway, as part of the reality parameters, they
> include things like trees and animals.  For the Australian simulation
> they included kangaroos.  In particular, they had to model kangaroo
> movements and reactions to helicopters (since hordes of disturbed
> kangaroos might well give away a helicopter's position).
>
> Being good programmers, they just stole some code (which was originally
> used to model infantry detachments reactions under the same stimuli),
> and changed the mapped icon, the speed parameters, etc.  The first time
> they've gone to demonstrate this to some visiting Americans, the
> hotshot pilots have decided to get "down and dirty" with the virtual
> kangaroos.  So, they buzz them, and watch them scatter.  The visiting
> Americans nod appreciatively... then gape as the kangaroos duck around
> a hill, and launch about two dozen Stinger missiles at the hapless
> helicopter.  Programmers look rather embarrassed at forgetting to
> remove that part of the infantry coding... and Americans leave
> muttering comments about not wanting to mess with the Aussie wildlife!
>
> As an addendum, simulator pilots from that point onwards avoided
> kangaroos like the plague, just like they were meant to do in the first
> place.