One of Bermuda’s pioneering aviators, and the last remaining local mechanic for the “flying boats”, has died at the age of 88.Second World War veteran Arthur Colin Plant passed away at the Somerset home from where his vintage seaplane, a Luscombe Silvaire, regularly took to Bermuda’s skies.“Colin has been described as one of the last of the originals,” said widow Susan Plant.A treasure diver with local legend Teddy Tucker, Mr Plant used his aircraft for spotting wrecks from the sky — and would mark their place with a weighted plastic bottle.As a child, he tinkered with boats at Bert Darrell’s slip — and from that early start became a mechanic for the seaplanes that were serviced at Bermuda’s first airport on Darrell’s Island.“He signed up for the fleet air arm, not the actual army, in 1942 when he was 18 — it was a way to see the world,” Mrs Plant told The Royal Gazette.Mr Plant shipped out to the UK as an aircraft mechanic and had to return after the vessel caught fire — but eventually reached Liverpool, and from there served mainly in the southern UK.Although Mr Plant recalled being knocked down by the blast from a “doodlebug” — the German V-1 “flying bomb” — he was spared the more harrowing experiences of service.“He reckoned he had a very good war — it was what a teenager would want,” his wife of 39 years said.Returning to the Island in late 1944, Mr Plant worked as a mechanic for Pan Am and Eastern Airlines, living for a spell at Darrell’s Island before Bermuda’s airport shifted to Kindley Field.Initially licensed just to taxi the floating aircraft over to Albuoy’s Point, Mr Plant’s first taste of flight came by accident when he drove too fast and the plane took off.At Kindley Field he started learning officially how to fly, although he only obtained a licence at the insistence of Commander EM (Mo) Ware.As a pilot for Hugh Watlington, Mr Plant found his true calling — and purchased his beloved Luscombe aircraft when the company folded in 1954.The private pilot loved to drive tourists and photographers through Bermuda’s skies.“I went up there quite a bit,” Mrs Plant remembered. “He tried to teach me to fly, but that didn’t work out. You could see everything from up there. We never went down to the East End because of the airport, but we used to fly all around the place, and over the reefs.”Following the assassination of Governor Richard Sharples in 1973, Mr Plant caused a scuffle by taking photographers over Government House.His plane was well-known in Somerset, where it was kept on Robert Canton’s slipway; Mr Plant eventually moved to his home by Cavello Bay, and his aircraft, kept on the property, remained a well-known fixture at the West End.It flew until 1986, when the engine gave out — and the plane is now on display in the US.Another vintage aircraft, gifted to Mr Plant by a fellow air enthusiast, was kept on the property and is now in a BAS-Serco hangar with Wing Commander Ware’s own Luscombe, potentially to go on exhibit when the two are restored.An ardent mechanic, “Colin could fix anything”, Mrs Plant said.He opted to remain at home after his inoperable bladder cancer was discovered earlier this year, and Mrs Plant thanked the friends and neighbours who helped her tend to her husband.Mr Plant didn’t wish for a funeral, she said, and was cremated following his May 20 death.Among the various tributes planned for her husband’s different groups of friends, Mrs Plant said she was hoping to explore one idea: a send-off by firework.