Training Ethiopian Canberra pilots at RAF Manby and Bassingbourn

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Member for

18 years

Posts: 166

Hello all. This is a long shot, but was anyone here (or knows someone) that was with 231 OCU at Bassingbourn back in the late 1960s? I'm specifically looking for anyone that remembered training four Ethiopian pilots on the Canberra. In particular, do they remember the tall pilot, Amha Desta (photo below), that was rejected from the course after it was discovered he was too tall for a safe ejection?

Or anyone that was at RAF Manby and remembers training them on Jet Provosts. Both cases would have been late 1967 and into 1968. I'd be grateful for anyone that has memories to share on this topic!

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Member for

20 years 9 months

Posts: 333

Well our JP XS186 was at Manby in 1967 / 68. I have several log book extracts from the three or four pilots that flew her around that period. I can check to see if there’s any reference to nationality of students, though I don’t recall anything except occasional references to Royal Navy (RN) etc......

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Member for

18 years 1 month

Posts: 2,123

Nazca_steve: I asked a friend who did his Canberra conversion at Bassingbourn mid to late 1967, and he has no recollection of Ethiopian colleagues. Sorry for a negative so far!