Born to a family of transplanted North Carolinians who moved to Washington State, a young Reece explored the hills of the Pacific Northwest. Hiking in the mountains and being a fire lookout gave him a taste of adventure, but he craved more—and he got it.
Reece’s first flying lesson ended in a cloud of billowing dust, ripped metal, and broken Plexiglas. But that didn’t keep him grounded. Over the next few years, he navigated his Lockheed C-130 to steamy nights in Rangoon, risky undercover aircraft deliveries to Libya, icy Arctic expeditions, and desperate flights out of the desert with machine guns pointed at his gut, to landing Boeing jets on short, icy runways on Alaska’s Aleutian Chain.
Reece’s entertaining biography delves into the fast-paced world of aviation and is filled with compassion, danger, bits of humor, and the follies of youth. It’s also the remarkable tale of how Reece and his wife, Nancy, sought to keep his dream of flying alive through the years. From the freezing, isolated North Pole to the heat and heart of Africa, Flying North South East and West takes you to every direction on the compass and leads you to the adventure of a lifetime.
