Prior to going overseas I decided to buy a better camera. In the ship's store was a Canon T-90,
one of the more advanced cameras at the time.
It was auto everything, except for lens focusing, which was manual.
Auto focus wasn't real reliable. It had a frame rate of 4.5 frames a second.
One day while underway it was announced the ship was going to General Quarters to fire a Sea Sparrow
missile at a drone.
Sea Sparrowmissiles are anti-aircraft missiles and exit the firing cannister going somewhere around mach 4.
My friend Bill and I looked at each other and we grabbed our cameras. Being an oil king did have its advantages.
One was that you could move about the ship during General Quarters.
We went up on the helo deck and waited, cameras at the ready.
The next thing I heard was a very loud roar. Couldn't see a thing. I held the shutter button down on the camera and
followed the noise.
I got eight pictures, which means the event lasted a little under two seconds.
I couldn't believe the results when I got the pictures back.
This was one of the more popular sets of pictures that my shipmates requested pictures of.
I actually got a picture of the missile leaving the cannister.
And it's picking up speed.
Up and out of sight.
And the drone is toast.
