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"Bureaucracies hide their mistakes, because people's careers are tied to those mistakes. Therefore, bureaucracies are a perfect mechanism for perpetuating mistakes."
- Frank Herbert

Gyrotomic  
  A small gyrostabilized hovercraft.  

And all the time the fellows told me that Ianay had taken it upon himself to privately tutor Rosalie in her gyrotomic-flying.

Which hurt more than anything else!

Technovelgy from Ra For The Rajah, by John Victor Peterson.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1938
Additional resources -

The gyrotomics could also be used in team sports:


(Rocket Polo from Ra For The Rajah)

Five small gyrotomics, their wings and fuselages etched in guarded neon-tubes, constitute a team. The ball is a five-foot, positively charged, helium-filled sphere which is thrust back and forth by plus-charged force beams in the 'tomic's noses.

Compare to the flying platform from Locked Worlds (1929) by Edmond Hamilton, the hoverlimo from Steel Beach (1992) by John Varley, the landspeeder from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas and the hovercraft from Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) by William Gibson.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Ra For The Rajah
  More Ideas and Technology by John Victor Peterson
  Tech news articles related to Ra For The Rajah
  Tech news articles related to works by John Victor Peterson

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