Grant, the pilot of King Abdul Aziz, flew the Douglas DC-3, which was gifted to King Abdul Aziz by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in February 1945.

Prince Sultan said he was "a loving friend of Saudi Arabia and its citizens."

In his obituary, the prince said: "Whenever we met he would speak a lot about His Majesty King Abdul Aziz, digging deep into his reservoir of memories, and about people with whom he spent sweet times, and expressing his eagerness to meet them again."

Prince Sultan added: "Those memories continued till the last call I made to him a week before his death. He had a full presence of mind and vitality despite the difficulties of senility and frequent hospital visits during the last few weeks."

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah received Capt. Grant when he visited the Kingdom in May 2009. He had also met with a number of princes and prominent Saudi officials during that visit.

The Saudi government honored Grant by conferring on him the King Abdul Aziz Medal of the First Order. Saudi Ambassador to the US Adel Al-Jubeir presented the medal during a function in Washington in February 2009. "Mr. Grant's contributions in helping foster Saudi-US relations are deeply appreciated to this day," said Al-Jubeir.

The book "King Abdul Aziz ...His Plane and His Pilot" was launched during the Oshkosh Air Show in Wisconsin on July 30,2009 in the presence of Prince Sultan bin Salman. The book, which was written by Dr. Michael Saba, chronicles Capt. Grant's experiences flying the DC-3 for the Saudi royal family during the 1940s.

Grant burst into tears when he saw the DC-3 in the Peninsula Falcon Museum in Riyadh. Grant once said: "King Abdul Aziz loved and respected his people and he worked for their upliftment. Transparency, which is considered a simple and key philosophy, was his hallmark and this enabled the Saudi state to reach its present position among the comity of nations. It also made him one of the great men across the ages."

Born in Stockton, California, on March 24, 1908, Grant was an airplane mechanic who later became a pilot in the late 1920s. He was a seasoned pilot of many aircraft at the beginning of World War II, having worked as a barnstormer and commercial pilot.

In the spring of 1945, he was assigned to deliver a Douglas DC-3 airplane, a gift from President Roosevelt to King Abdul Aziz. When offered to stay on in the Kingdom as a pilot for the royal family, he agreed and stayed for two years. He would later help found Saudi Arabian Airlines.

Grant considered his stay in Saudi Arabia as a momentous time of his long life. "My time in Saudi Arabia was the greatest gift I could have ever been given. At the time, I didn't realize what an opportunity it was — I thought I was just doing my job," he was quoted saying in an interview last year.