Derek Smith (television producer) looking at life at a US Air Force base at Mildenhall in East Anglia. (1967) Smith produced "The Flight Deck Story", the history of the aircraft carrier, filmed on HMS Eagle and on USS Enterprise off the coast of Vietnam. He also produced "Mission To Hell", which followed the Bishop of Birmingham Leonard Wilson returning to Singapore to tell his story of war time imprisonment by the Japanese Army. Another military history film Smith made at this time was "Jump Jet", the history of the Hawker Harrier, vertical take-off or land aircraft. A film for the series The World About
Dornier Do 31 during its ferry flight to the 1969 Paris Air Show. It was the first, and so far only, vertical takeoff jet transport ever built. The project was cancelled in April 1970, although it made its final public flight on 4 May 1970 during the ILA in Hanover. One of the factors that led to the cancellation was the large drag and weight of the lift engine pods which reduced the useful payload and range compared to conventional transport aircraft. To cope with the complex and fast computations necessary for vertical takeoff, the Do 31 was equipped with a Dornier DO-960