To sort of answer #2 and then #1, the Flash in the Pan Ignition methods works great on just about every Estes motor combination or cluster I have ever tried, from 1/2 A to C's and I have had a very high success rate with chad staging up to D's without a timer or ignitor on the sustainers of smaller rockets.

If you get up into the AP motors, Blue Thunder propellant lights the easiest, and clusters very well. Other than my 6x 24mm airstart attempt where the timer didn't arm right, I'm 100% for clusters 7 airstart ignitions. (Now jinxed) I have yet to stage anything. Perhaps I'll dust off the Farside I built in the 70's but never flew.

The PerfectFlight minitimer should easily light an estes ignitor or several, given the necessary battery. Adrian's Parrot can and has lit Estes motors. He'll probably chime in here soon.

Ken

Somehow I missed this earlier.

I have been using exclusively Estes ignitors for my deployment charges, and they have been 100% reliable with the Parrot and tiny Li-poly battery cells. I haven't tried using the Parrot to ignite Estes motors, but it should work fine. The Parrot altimeter's staging/deployment outputs can provide up to 4 Amps from up to a 20V battery.

When I tried and failed to ignite my E6 second stage at Oktoberfest, it was because I didn't have an ignitor that was compatible with the tiny 4 Volt deployment battery I was using, which matches up well with the 0.8 Ohm Estes ignitors, but wouldn't have worked with the 7 Ohm Fuddrucker Tim gave me, and didn't work with the 1-Ohm Copperhead I tried using. If I try staging again, it will probably be with Magnalite ignitors, which are Estes-like in their current requirements, but put out enough heat to ignite AP motors. Or maybe Quickburst.