mitsu at the moment I believe two flat planes (not squashed aircraft) have a animated smoke or fire texture on them.
1st picture shows what they would look like with no texture (why you see a cross shape in smoke trails when following)
a particle system has an emmiter (where the particle form) each particle has physical attributes which may or may not be used, for ex, will gravity, wind etc have affect on them.
ex:
I would imagine that the emmiter will be at the back of the rocket, so as it travels particles will trial/be fired backward from it
see 2nd picture
note: the particles can be anything, they copy an object that you choose, so you could have lots of little tiny LA-7 coming out the back of a rocket if you wanted to

I hope this makes sense and we'll see how thet implement it.