A snowmobile , also known in some places as a snowmachine , sled , or skimobile , is a land vehicle for winter travel on snow. Designed to be operated on snow and ice, they require no road or trail. Design variations enable some machines to operate in deep snow or forests; most are used on open terrain, including lakes or driven on paths or trails. Usually built to accommodate a driver and perhaps one adult passenger, their use is much like motorcycles and All-terrain vehicles (ATVs) intended for winter use on snow-covered ground and frozen ponds and waterways. They have no enclosure other than a windshield and its engine normally drives a continuous track or tracks at the rear; skis at the front provide directional control.
Early snowmobiles used rubber tracks, however modern snowmobiles typically have tracks made of a Kevlar composite. Originally snowmobiles were typically powered by two-stroke gasoline/petrol internal combustion engines. Four-stroke engines are becoming more and more common in snowmobiles, primarily to address environmental complaints.
Originally intended as a winter utility vehicle to be used where other vehicles cannot go, they appealed to hunters and workers transporting personnel and materiel across snow-covered land, frozen lakes and rivers. In the latter part of the 20th century, they have been put to use for recreational purposes as well. People who ride them commonly are known as snowmobilers. The contemporary types of recreational riding forms are known as Snowcross/racing, trail riding, freestyle, mountain climbing, boondocking, carving, ditchbanging and grass drags. Summertime activities for snowmobile enthusiasts include drag racing on grass, asphalt strips, or even across water.
History
Introduction
The challenges of transporting people and their possessions cross-country during the winter season drove the invention of the snowmobile, an all-terrain vehicle specifically designed for travel across deep snow where other vehicles floundered. During the 20th century, rapidly evolving designs produced machines that were most commonly two-person tracked vehicles powered by gas engines that enabled them to tow a sled or travel, initially at low-to-moderate speeds, depending on snow conditions, terrain and the presence of obstacles protruding above the snow, including brush and trees. Originally utility vehicles, many manufacturers now provide a full range of recreational. special-purpose, and competition versions. Where early designs had 10 horsepower two-stroke engines, there has been a move toward newer style 2-stroke and 4-stroke gas engines, some with over 150HP.
Multi-passenger snowmobiles
Main articles: Aerosan and SnowcatThe origin of the snowmobile is not the work of any one inventor but more a process of advances in engines for the propulsion of vehicles and supporting devices over snow. It parallels the development of the automobile and later aviation, often inventors using the same components for a different use.
Wisconsinites experimented with over-snow vehicles before 1900, trying bicycles on runners with gripping fins, steam-propelled sleighs and later Model T Fords converted with rear tractor treads and skis in front. In the first races held near Three Lakes in 1926, 104 of these "snowbuggies" started. Carl Eliason of Sayner developed the prototype of the modern snowmobile in 1924 when he mounted a small gasoline-powered marine engine on a long toboggan, steered with skis under the front and driven by a rear, single, endless track. Patented in 1926, Eliason made 40 snowmobiles. Upon receiving an order for 200 from Finland, he sold his patent to the FWD Company of Clintonville. They made 300 for military use, then transferred the patent to a Canadian subsidiary.
The Aerosan, propeller-powered and running on skis, was built in 1909-1910 by the Russian inventor Igor Sikorsky. Aerosans were used by the Soviet Red Army during the Winter War and the Second World War There is some dispute over whether Aerosans should be considered snowmobiles, as they are not propelled by tracks, but if they are, they would be the first snowmobiles developed.
Adolphe Kégresse designed an original caterpillar tracks system, called the Kégresse track, while working for Tsar Nicholas II of Russia between 1906 and 1916. These used a flexible belt rather than interlocking metal segments and could be fitted to a conventional car or truck to turn it into a half-track, suitable for use over soft ground, including snow. Conventional front wheels and steering were used but the wheel could be fitted with skis as seen in the upper right image. He applied it to several cars in the Royal garage including Rolls-Royce cars and Packard trucks. Although this was not a snowmobile, it could be thought as one of the ancestor of the modern concept.
The first United States patent for a snow-vehicle using the now recognized format of rear track(s) and front skis was issued to Ray H. Muscott of Waters, MI on June 27, 1916 with U.S. Patent # 1,188,981. Many individuals later modified Ford Model Ts with the undercarriage replaced with tracks and skis following this design. They were popular for rural mail delivery for a time.
The relatively dry snow conditions of the United States Midwest suited the converted model Ts and other like vehicles but they were not suitable for operation in more humid snow areas such as Southern Quebec and New England. This led Joseph-Armand Bombardier of the small town of Valcourt in Quebec, Canada, to invent a different caterpillar track system suitable for all kinds of snow conditions. Bombardier had already made some "metal" tracked vehicles since 1928, but his new revolutionary track traction system (a toothed wheel covered in rubber, and a rubber and cotton track that wraps around the back wheels) was his first major invention. He started production of a large, enclosed, seven-passenger snowmobile in 1937, the B-7 and introduced another enclosed twelve-passenger model, the B-12 in 1942. The B-7 had a V-8 flathead engine from Ford Motor Company. The B-12 had a flathead in line six cylinder engine from Chrysler industrial, and 2,817 units were produced until 1951. It was used in many applications, such as ambulances, Canada Post vehicles, winter "school buses", forestry machines and even army vehicles in World War II. Bombardier had always dreamed of a smaller version, more like the size of a motor scooter.
Individual snowmobiles
Numerous people had ideas for a smaller personal snowmobile. In 1914, O.M. Erickson and Art Olsen of the P.N. Bushnell company in Aberdeen, South Dakota built an open two-seater "motor-bob" out of an Indian motorcycle modified with a cowl-cover, side by side seating, and a set of sled-runners fore and aft. While it did not have the tracks of a true snowmobile, its appearance was otherwise similar to the modern version and is one of the earliest examples of a personal motorized snow-vehicle. Edgar and Allen Hetteen and David Johnson of Roseau, Minnesota were among the first to build a practical snowmobile in 1955–1956, but the early machines were heavy (1,000 lb/450 kg) and slow (20 mph/32 km/h). Their company, Hetteen Hoist & Derrick Co., became Polaris Industries, a small snowmobile manufacturer.. It was only in 1960, when engines became lighter and smaller than before, that Bombardier invented what we know as the modern snowmobile in its open-cockpit one- or two-person form, and started selling it as the "Ski-doo". Competitors sprang up and copied and improved his design. In the 1970s there were over a hundred snowmobile manufacturers. From 1970 to 1973 they sold close to two million machines, a sales summit never since equalled, with a peak of half a million in 1971. Many of the snowmobile companies were small outfits and the biggest manufacturers were often attempts by motorcycle makers and outboard motor makers to branch off in a new market. Most of these companies went bankrupt during the gasoline crisis of 1973 and succeeding recessions, or were bought up by the larger ones. Sales rebounded to 260,000 in 1997 but went down gradually afterward, influenced by warmer winters and the use during all four seasons of small one- or two-person ATVs. The snowmobile market is now divided up between the four large North American makers (Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP), Arctic Cat, Yamaha, and Polaris) and some specialized makers like the Quebec-based AD Boivin (manufacturer of the Snow Hawk) and the European Alpina Snowmobiles.
Some of the higher powered modern snowmobiles can achieve speeds in excess of 150 mph (240 km/h). Drag racing snowmobiles can reach speeds in excess of 200 mph (320 km/h).
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