LOS ANGELES, June 9: As a military band played "Hail to the Chief" and "Amazing Grace", Ronald Reagan started his last journey to Washington on Wednesday after an outpouring of affection and grief in California.

The body of the nation's 40th president was flown in a flag-draped coffin aboard a presidential jet that took off from the Point Mugu Naval Air Station in California following a short, poignant ceremony in which a Marine colour guard fired a 21-gun salute from canons at the edge of the airfield.

Former first lady Nancy Reagan, dressed in black and looking sombre, climbed the steps of the blue and white Air Force plane and waved goodbye to a small crowd of onlookers.

Reagan died on Saturday at age 93 after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. Reagan's casket was borne to the airport from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, about 40kms away where his had lain in repose for a day and a half, viewed by more than 100,000 mourners.

The hearse was greeted at the airport by members of a military honour guard who unloaded the coffin and carried the casket between two rows of soldiers, sailors and airmen onto the jet waiting on the tarmac.

In Washington, crowds had already begun waiting to pay their respects to Reagan whose casket will be taken by horse through the streets. The procession will include a riderless black horse, with boots turned backward in the stirrups, indicating that the warrior will not ride again. -Reuters