Our Venoms were all sawn up and we returned to England in a Britania (whispering giant...because it had f... all to shout about)...I sat abeam the props and back in the U.K. my ears took three days to recover their hearing. We re-equipped with Hunter FGA 9s at R.A.F. Stradishall and after some familiarising and practice air to ground firing, we flew them out to Nairobi...Eastleigh was too small to operate Hunters, so we were based at the new Embakazi Airport (now Jomo Kenyatta).
DaveG might be interested in this one...The Braking Parachutes were used for ALL landings at Embakazi Airport for technical reasons...DaveG this shows the length of the string and the colour of the chute...it got a little browner with age...Sort of parchment colour.
Taxying in after dropping the chute off the edge of the runway...I was flying Oscar on this occasion.
Yuo may remember from an earlier post that a Masai chief agreed to look after our practice target out in the Rift Valley....Well we arranged a Parade of Hunters for the Masai to...
...meet the new aircraft.
I was obviously not taking these pictures because that is me with my back to the camera...Paddy Thompson our excellent Squadron Engineering Officer is tipping his hat and Dicky Brown our Instrument Rating Examiner is looking a bit bored with the proceedings. We never normally wore this kit and that is probably why it is looking a bit crumpled...We normally...
...dressed like this for the whole year, as the climate is very pleasant...It is very close to the Equator but is 5500 feet above sea level. This was our crewroom in a small complex of "AlTents" (aluminium huts).
Thank you for looking at this last set in the series.
Once again, so much more real in colour - and makes it seem less old than the equivalent type of material in black & white. Photographs of the Masai tribesmen just wouldnt be the same in b&w!
