In the mid 1960's a friend turned me on to the Sniffer. Being a Control Line hacker, I overpowered my first
one with a Cox Baby Bee .049in3 engine. It would climb out in a half loop then roll out and climb over on its back again,
gaining altitude all the time.
Even with a Tatone DT I still managed to lose it twice. Once at the Van Nuys flying site - it DT'd into a pumpkin
patch and the red/ytellow paint scheme blended into the orange pumpkin patch all afternoon!
One hot summer I launched it without first running out the tank. It climbed out from the Shafter High School football
field and eventually DTed...power looping all the while. Finally the engine cut and it went into the 4H cornfield
adjacent. I walked the 8 foot tall rows of dry cornstalks with pollen itching my head, neck and torso all day and part
of the next before literally running into it unscathed. Great fun! I built a second but it never surpassed my
first Sniffer. A while back (20 years?) Art Schroder or Bill Winter scaled the Sniffer up 2X or maybe even 3x for
R/C. Gotta try that some day. snr
