I went through the Canberra OCU at Marham in 1980, and we had a Zimbabwean (formerly Rhodesian Air Force) crew on my course.
Sanctions during the war caused them to make many improvisations to keep their aircraft operational. They could not obtain cartridges, so they used compressed air instead. From the way they described it, this was a lash-up involving a large "bottle" attached somehow to the starter so that the air could spin up the starter turbine in the same way as the cartridge gasses would during a "normal" start. Of course, the connection had to be removed as soon as the engine was running.
Those young guys (Messrs Ludgater and Mew as I recall) had some pretty amazing tales to tell. Never heard how they got on on their return to Mugabe's paradise - - -