Its code name is "Loki," and this silent, stealthy snowmobile is being developed by the Canadian military to transport troops on secret operations in the terrorist hotbed known as the Arctic. No, seriously.
According to a report from the CBC, Canada's Department of National Defence has hired Waterloo, Ontario-based CrossChasm Technologies to develop and build the stealth snowmobile at a cost of $620,000 -- or $70,000 more than the original 2011 tendering document allowed.
Details on this secret snowmobile are -- as you'd expect -- sparse. But above all else, its main goal is to be silent. The original federal tender mentioned a gas-electric hybrid system that could switch from the internal combustion engine to a silent mode using an electric motor, similar to many of the hybrid vehicles on sale today.
The CBC obtained a "heavily redacted" report through the Access to Information Act (think FOIA), that details some of the testing procedures Canadian Forces conducted at a base in Petawawa. The tests included, "a wide variety of the snowmobile's characteristics, including speed, towing capacity, endurance, mobility, usability, and of course, noise emissions," with military personnel using everything from radar guns to acoustic meters to gauge the snowmobile's abilities.
Both a government spokesperson and a representative from CrossChasm refused to comment on the development of the stealth snowmobile. But Michael Byers, a former New Democratic Party candidate and current professor at the University of British Columbia, told the CBC, "I don't see a whole lot of evidence that criminals and terrorists are scooting around Canada's North on snowmobiles and that we have to sneak up on them ... I can't help but wonder whether they've been watching too many [James] Bond movies."
