Motors / Aerotech / G64
HV Arcas Launch 20181208

The 22+ year old Arcas would be flying for the first time on something other than a Blue Thunder motor. This time, It woud fly on a reload G64W-10 White Lightning, which gave a cool flame and smoke trail, especially in comparison to the almost flamless Blue Thunder propellant. I've heard that the reload delays tend to be not-too-accurate, and this was no exception. I usually fly this bird with G80-10s expendables and they dependably blow the chute at apogee. Even though this reload was supposed to be a 10 second delay between burnout and event, based on the onboard U838 DVR footage and my handheld video, it was more like 13+ seconds, which resulted in a dramatic downward plunge toward lawndartdom before deployment. The event did finally occur and the chute did finally deploy. I have a very long and robust shock cord, so it was not damaged at all. You can see the little spycam taped onto the side. I messed up and taped it above the separation point, so that position gave a very different perspective of the separation and deployment event. Once the payload section popped, you looked at the chute being deployed, rather than the bottom section coming down. Oh well...live and learn. Otherwise, all went well and it landed a few hundred yards downrange on the other side of the Agate Skyways RC airplane runway. You can see the entire sequence, plus the liftoff cam on the next video.

Author Don Longjuan
Duration 32 seconds

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