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
Assisted take-off Assisted take-off Assisted takeoff is any system for helping aircraft to get into the air (as opposed to strictly under its own power). The reason it might be needed is due to the aircraft's weight exceeding the normal maximum takeoff weight, insufficient power, insufficient available runway length, or a combination of all three factors. Assisted takeoff is also required for gliders, which do not have an engine and are unable to take off by themselves. A well-known type of assisted takeoff is an aircraft catapult. In modern systems fitted on aircraft carriers, a piston, known as a "shuttle", is propelled