WORLD
Canadian Forces test ‘Loki,’ a stealth snowmobile for covert Arctic ops
Baku, August 19 (AZERTAC). The Canadian military has been secretly test-driving a $620,000 stealth snowmobile in its quest to quietly whisk troops on clandestine operations in the Arctic.
The Canadian Press has learned that soldiers have taken the new hybrid-electric snowmobile prototype on trial runs to evaluate features such as speed, noise level, battery endurance and acceleration.
The Department of National Defence even has a nickname for its cutting-edge, covert tool: “Loki,” after the “mythological Norse shape-shifting god.”
Word of the federal hunt for a stealth snowmobile first surfaced two years ago when National Defence’s research and development agency posted a public tender.
That 2011 tendering document, however, offered few details on the future of these missions, except for the top priority: silence.
The project kicked off at a time when the Conservative government was laying out promises to boost Canada`s military muscle in the Far North, in a once-vaunted package of Canadian Forces upgrades the feds have largely failed to implement.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled to arrive in the Arctic on Sunday for a six-day tour of the region, where his government`s main focus has gradually moved from improving the country`s northern military capabilities to promoting economic development.
The stealth-snowmobiles project has withstood that political shift.
National Defence has made it clear it does not intend to spend any more money on Arctic mobility for eight years, but its research branch says the evaluation of the silent snowmobile, though still in its early stages, will continue.
The Canadian Press obtained a report that offers a behind-the-scenes peek at how soldiers ran the prototype through “informal” tests in February across varying snow conditions on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa.
“These experiments compared Loki against commercially available snowmobiles already in use, testing a wide variety of the snowmobiles` characteristics, including speed, towing capacity, endurance, mobility, usability, and of course, noise emissions,” says the heavily redacted report, acquired under the Access to Information Act.
In one test, military personnel used sound-meter readings to compare the prototype`s noise performance against two gas-powered snowmobiles.
Another trial saw the machine driven at a steady speed on a mix of flat terrain and hilly snow-covered roads until batteries died.
Soldiers wielding a radar gun also tested the stealth snowmobile`s acceleration as it raced 100 metres down a flat, snow-packed track.