13. Airborne Operation Photos - Green Ramp, Pope Air Force Base, NC - Inside the C-141 Starlifter Cargo jet aircraft - June 14, 1984

Here we're in the plane, still somewhere at Green Ramp, not yet off the ground. The jumpmaster is standing. He has a slightly different type of parachute on. The plane is packed with Paratroopers headed out for a relatively short flight to Sicily Drop Zone back on Fort Bragg.

After I took this third flash picture in the plane one of the jumpmasters confiscated my camera. He said using the camera on the plane "Detracted From the Mission" and was unprofessional. I guess he didn't have a safer place to put my camera, because less than five minutes later he brought it back to me. He returned it on the condition that I promise not to take any photos while I was in the air (out of the plane and under the parachute canopy). I gladly agreed, as that had never been my intent anyway. We had been warned about that many times. You don't want someone causing accidents because they weren't paying attention.