'Best Day Ever': Logan Veteran Gets Final Flight around City
Nov. 17—Wilbur Trinen boarded a small plane Tuesday for what he later called the "best day ever."
The 98-year-old Logansport resident hadn't been on a flight in approximately four to five years, but the staff from Physiocare Hospice and McKinney Place sought to change that.
They got in touch with Jason Snow, a local flight instructor, who landed at the Logansport/Cass County Airport at 10 a.m. ready to take Trinen and his nurse, Julie Williams, for a flight circling the city where Trinen has lived since he was 5.
"It was awesome," he said after landing. "I feel like a celebrity. I'm sure glad I came."
Trinen moved to Logansport with his family after his father took a railroad job here. He graduated from Logansport High School in 1940 and later joined the U.S. Army in January 1943.
He served three years in the 1632 Phototopographic Platoon of the 648 Engineers, which provided three-dimensional mapping and sculpturing of the Pacific islands held by the enemy up until the dropping of the atomic bombs that ended the war.
The platoon operated out of Melbourne, Australia, before moving to Manila to begin mapping the Japanese islands.
The maps made during the war required a great deal of hours, manpower and equipment that ranged from airplanes to crow quill pens.
Trinen explained in a 2010 Pharos-Tribune article that B-17 and P-38 airplanes would first fly over enemy territory, taking multiple overlapping photographs of the terrain below. Those photos would then be placed into projectors.
Through a process called triangular projection, specialists like Trinen would determine the evaluations.
From the photos, topographical maps and 3D maps could be produced.
"They had to be accurate. There wasn't no messing around," Trinen said.
After returning to Logansport in January 1946, he got married and worked at Logansport Matsumoto before serving as president of Co-Tronics, which provides custom, injection-molded components to companies and is now based out of Peru. Trinen led the Civil Air Patrol's search and rescue team and was a part of the Cass County Historical Society.
His daughter, Becky Lueckenhoff, said he would take her on Sunday afternoon flights after church.
"He had a real love for flight," she said. "It was such an incredible thing they pulled off today."
Trinen also helped build up the airport, serving as the president of Logansport Board of Aviation Commissioners from 1970 to 2000.
During his tenure, the Logansport Municipal Airport saw several improvements, including the construction of the original building that housed its operations. He also helped pave the way for the county airport authority that provided more funding to the airport. It had previously only been funded through city taxes.
"I don't think anyone has any idea how much you have done to improve the board and the airport," then-Mayor Dick Hettinger said in 2000 when Trinen retired.
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