Childhood JFK Jr. photos released 50 years after Kennedy assassination

Fifty-year-old images of John F. Kennedy Jr. sitting in the pilot's seat of his father's presidential helicopter were digitized and released online Thursday.

The photos, taken on March 31, 1963 on a trip to Camp David, show 2-year-old John Jr., wearing a red jacket, white pants and bright red shoes and pretending to fly the helicopter.

According to the JFK Library, which owns the images, the pictures were taken by White House photographer Robert Knudsen, who held the position from 1946 to 1974 and photographed the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations.

Kennedy famously went on to become a pilot, dying in 1999 when his plane went down over the Atlantic Ocean, also carrying his wife and her sister.

The images were made available on the JFK Library Tumblr.