104-Year-Old WWII Veteran Flies in Restored Biplane

At age 104, Grover Trytten of Georgetown doesn't want to fly in commercial airplanes. The World War II veteran said he feels stuck when placed in an aisle seat or trapped in a window seat because the windows don't open. But when he flew in the open cockpit of a World War II biplane this week, he said he smiled the whole time.

"It was thrilling, and I liked being able to look over the side," Trytten said.

He was one of six veterans picked to fly out of the Georgetown Municipal Airport on a restored 1943 Boeing-Stearman biplane with Darryl Fisher, the owner of Dream Flights. The nonprofit has provided free 15-minute flights in Stearman biplanes to 8,000 veterans and seniors across the country since 2011, Fisher said.

"We primarily fly seniors and veterans who live in nursing homes and senior living places and are at a point in their life where people are not comfortable flying," Fisher said. "They need a real 'pick-me-up.'"

"The World War II veterans in particular have given us so much and it's really beautiful to be able to say 'thank you,'" Fisher said.

The Stearman that Fisher flew on Wednesday is called the "Spirit of Texas" and was used to train pilots in World War II. The nonprofit spent seven years restoring the plane after it was donated by a man who lives near San Antonio, Fisher said.

The Dream Flights in Georgetown on Wednesday were the beginning of a nine-city Texas tour honoring nearly 100 veterans. The tour runs through June 9, with stops in Pflugerville, Brookshire, Fort Worth, Lubbock, Big Spring, San Antonio, Castroville and Horseshoe Bay.

Fisher, who lives in Nevada and owns his own senior living company, said he decided to start the nonprofit after his father asked him to fly a Stearman just rebuilt in Mississippi back to Oregon. Since he had to make 15 stops for gas for the biplane on the way back, Fisher said he decided to call facilities where he landed and ask them to bring a veteran for a short flight.

"It was something to do to make the trip more meaningful," he said.

Families started meeting him to watch him fly veterans wherever he stopped, he said. When he got home, his wife persuaded him to keep providing the free flights, so he started the nonprofit, Fisher said. One of the national sponsors is Sport Clips Haircuts, headquartered in Georgetown. The oldest World War II veteran that Fisher has ever flown was 106, he said. Once veterans reach the age of 100, they qualify for a flight on Dream Flights each year, Fisher said.

Trytten said Wednesday's flight was his first, but he plans to go on more.

He grew up in Michigan and was going to school at the University of Hawaii in 1940 when he decided to leave because people feared there was going to be a Japanese attack, he said. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, brought the U.S. into World War II. Trytten said that in 1942 he joined the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps, a military branch responsible for supplying and maintaining weapons, ammunition and vehicles.

He was assigned as a second lieutenant to the Army Air Corps, the predecessor to the Army Air Force. Trytten said he was stationed near Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge and helped load bombs and ammunition onto planes for the fight. The Battle of the Bulge from December 1944 to January 1945 was the biggest land battle the U.S. fought during World War II. Trytten said he can still remember German airplanes flying low over his crew at night firing machine guns at them while they were in bed. He was not injured.

After the war, he got married and also earned a degree in plant science from the University of Michigan. He became a junior high science teacher before moving to Arizona and working in a research lab for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said. Later, Trytten worked on defense contracts for a research lab at the University of Michigan. His last job started in 1978 with Texas Instruments in Houston, where he worked in product engineering before retiring at age 69, he said.

He and his wife, Lola, moved to Sun City in Georgetown in 2000. She died in 2009. He has a daughter, Lynn Trytten-Owens, three grandsons and 11 great-grandchildren.

Trytten said he lived in his house in Sun City until he was 101 and then moved into an assisted living community in Georgetown. He said he doesn't know why he's lived so long. He's never had any serious health conditions, worked a lot in his big garden while living in Sun City and still likes to swim.

"I suppose I just have good luck," he said. "I've done darn fool things. ... I've fallen off a roof, gone through a glass window and thrown a cigarette into an empty gas container."

His daughter said he's always been calm.

"I can count on one hand the number of times he's been very angry," she said.

Trytten said he has a tip on how to live life. "Don't worry about it," he said.

But there was one thing that bothered him after flying in the World War II-era biplane with Fisher, he said. He didn't want to sign the tail of the plane — a tradition Fisher started as a way to honor veterans who fly with him.

"I was really afraid of signing the tail because I don't have a good signature and it's hard to write on a vertical surface," he said, laughing.

But he did it anyway.