Flashback to the 1950s. The Cold War was about as cold as it got and NATO quickly worked out that once the USSR had nukes they could take out all the runways in Europe and ground the fighter fleet. Enter ZELL. Zero Length Launch was a program developed to enable interceptors to be deployed without any runway at all. This test is on an F-100 Super Sabre in the USA. The program went into production, but was scuttled once reliable missiles took on the role of interception.
