I actually worked on a portion of the aerial photography for The Great Waldo Pepper . In 1974 Universal came to Sebring Fl. to use the small airport there . They wanted white puffy clouds as back grounds and Florida has plenty of those . I was one of four assistant cameramen and our job was to load & service the Arri cameras after each flight . We would put women's shower caps over the lenses to keep the engine oil off . The stunt pilots were supposed to pull the wires attached to the caps before filming , but sometimes they would forget . So at dailies we would see several minutes of the inside of a shower cap , not a good thing !
Bob Surtees was the Director of Photography and his credits include " Ben Hur " ," King Solomon Mines " , "Summer of 42 " , " The Sting " and " The Last Picture Show ". Since this was only the second or third movie I had worked on at that time , I was very thrilled to be there !
Bill Barber