From the Canadian Press: The Canadian military is testing a $620,000 hybrid-electric snowmachine that it hopes can be used in clandestine operations in the country's vast Arctic territories. But the military hasn't yet specified exactly what it imagines would warrant use of the machine.
The Department of National Defence even has a nickname for its cutting-edge, covert tool: "Loki," after the "mythological Norse shape-shifting god." ...
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 snowmachine, 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.
Read more: Ottawa testing $620K stealth snowmobile for Arctic
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