A snipe hunt is a type of practical joke or fool’s errand, in existence in North America as early as the 1840s, in which an unsuspecting newcomer is duped into trying to catch an elusive animal called a snipe. Although the snipe is a real bird, a snipe hunt is a quest for a nonexistent creature whose description varies.
In the aviation mechanic industry, we’d send the new guy around town in search of “prop wash”, which seems like it’d be a fluid used to clean propellers. Its really just the turbulent air caused by the propeller
We used to send them for flight line tape 😂