Roman candle is a pretty good description of an A10-0T CATO. In every case I've had they've managed to light the sustainer in the process, so the rest of the flight actually proceeded pretty normally. In yesterday's case, the difference in apogee was only ~20% from a normal A10-0T to A3-4T flight and the one that had a CATO in the first stage.

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Bernard Cawley
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AMA 42160
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