Leninia-Trotskya Dirigible Service

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The Leninia-Trotskya Dirigible Service (LTDS) is Leninia-Trotskya's national airline. Due to Leninia-Trotskya's strict environmental protection laws, the LTDS employs several different types of airship instead of conventional heavier-than-air aircraft.

History

The LTDS began in 1957 with Congress of Soviets Resolution #1457 "Concerning the Creation of a National Airline" (passed with 489 in favour, 219 against, and 16 abstentions). It was originally to be called the Taarkian Air Service, to be headed by the Taarkian Air and Sea Ministry. In 2006 the name was changed to the Leninia-Trotskya Dirigible Service.

Advances in Air Travel

Unwilling to trade with the largely capitalist countries surrounding it, the Democratic Republic of Taark began work on the development of its own jet airliners soon after the Taarkian Air Service's inception. Up until then, the airline employed propeller driven TCL-19 Transports, which had been designed for military use in 1938.

The first attempts at jet airlines failed miserably. Jan Felipe, Taark's foremost naval engineer, set to work designing the new planes. It was a rough transition from designing passenger steamers to jet airliners. The first prototypes, TA 1 to TA 11, either crashed or didn't make it into the sky at all. The most outlandish design was TA 4, which was built of canvas and wood to try to create a lighter frame. However, the guywires supporting the wings snapped during jet flight, and the wings were broken from the fuselage. Luckily, the pilot parachuted to safety. The canvas and wood design was never used again.

TA 12 was the first successful jet airliner, and began service in 1961. It went through several updates and design changes, and was eventually replaced with the Felipe TA 13-100. The design stayed mostly the same until the TA 13-117 was phased out in the nineties.

Replacement of Airliners with Airships

In the nineties, the Taarkian government became more and more concerned with the harm that airliners were doing to the environment. At the advice of the Air Pollution Special Investigation Board, jet airliners were replaced with airships. By the year 2000, the Taarkian Air Service consisted of only airships.

See Also