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| Flight Stick | ||
| A kind of flying device. |
Niven enjoys his plays-on-words; pilots will enjoy the reference to a "flight stick".
| The flight stick was a lift-field generator and power source built into five feet of pole, with a control ring at one end, a brush discharge at the other, and a bucket seat and seat belt in the middle. Compact even for Svetz's age, the flight stick was spin-off from the spaceflight industries.
But it still weighed thirty pounds with the motor off. Getting it out of the clamps took all his strength. Svetz felt queasy, very queasy. He straddled the flight stick and twisted the control knob on the fore end. The stick lifted under him, and he wriggled into place on the bucket seat. He twisted the knob further. He drifted upward like a toy balloon. |
| Technovelgy from Get a Horse!,
by Larry Niven. Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1969 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the broomstick speeder from Waldo (1942) by Robert Heinlein.
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
