I knew the question was coming and I dreaded it. It happened in our afternoon news budget meeting. Bob Crider, the Herald-Republic’s top editor, asked the question. “So, did you get any photos of missiles being launched?” And he followed up with “Any flames?” (I’m paraphrasing Bob’s exact questions but you get the idea).
Earlier in the day I’d gone out to the Yakima Training Center, a huge U.S. Army training base near Yakima, to photograph troops training on air defense systems. Their mission was to shoot down remote-controlled aerial drones using either Stinger missiles or .50 cal. machine guns. Besides me there was a photographer from the Tacoma newspaper (Joe Barrentine) and a photographer from one of the local television stations.
The challenge was daunting – we were kept several hundred yards away forcing me to use a 400mm lens with a 2x teleconverter. The missile could be launched from any one of several Avenger defense systems on the range. Also, we would have no warning when a missile would be fired. So it was one big guessing game about when and where the missile would be launched. We were all trying to get the missile launch photo. Four hours and three missile later, the exercise was temporarily suspended and we all had to leave. I had a lot of frames of just the Avenger as I motored off frames thinking the missile was about to be launched.
This is as close as I came to getting a photo of the missile launch. You can see the smoke trail from the just-launched missile.
And none of us had The Shot. The missile coming out of the launcher. But we all had to bring something back for publication. So each of us went to plan B. For us (the Herald-Republic reporter and myself), plan B was the crews taking part in the exercise as well as the drones being used in the exercise.
U.S. Army Spec. Tony Anders climbs out of the turret of an Avenger Air Defense System on April 15, 2009 at the Yakima Training Center. Anders, a gunner for the Avenger, was part of a crew that fired a Stinger missle and .50 cal. guns at an aerial drone as part of his unit's training. Ander is a member of the 5th Battallion, 5th Air Defense Artillery that is training for possible deployment to Iraq in 2010.
Mike Grimm, left, and Roger Fessler carry an aerial drone that had just landed after flying in a training exercise April 15, 2009 at the Yakima Training Center. The remote-controlled drones were targeted by Avenger Defence Systems being fired by members of the 5th Battallion, 5th Air Defense Artillery. This drone was not hit by any of the .50 cal. machine gun fired at it.
I did get flames. Not of the missile launch but of a just-hit drone crashing to the ground in flames.
An aerial drone bursts into flame and plummets to the ground after being hit by a Stinger missile April 15, 2009 at the Yakima Training Center. Stingers and .50 cal. guns were fired at drones as part of a training exercise being conducted by the 5th Battallion, 5th Air Defense Artillery at the training center this week.
I tried to explain to Bob the editor how hard it was to predict the missile launch, how fast the launch occurs, how no one else got The Shot, blah, blah, blah. I knew he wasn’t satisfied and neither was I but I did the best I could. And when that isn’t good enough you’ve got have a plan B.
As a side note, the image quality of a picture taken with a 400 f2.8 Canon lens with a 2x Canon teleconverter is not good.
–Gordon King
