[DaveWM]

there are a lot of OEM flys that have that kind of cover on them, I suspect they are all going to fail at some point due to excessive moisture (perhaps the real culprit in arcing as opposed to the wire insulation breaking down. After all I presume the main function of all that paper is at least in part for insulation and how good an insulator can it be if its laden with liquid water.

I am really looking forward to the follow on to see if the fly no longer arcs and works as it should.

the main point being even OEM flys with this type of cover (the rubber outer cover that is not a potted type material) may have been breach while still in the box if the enviroment it was stored in was high humidity.

I know it may sound a bit risky, but perhaps if you have a NOS style fly like this it would be a good idea to go ahead and strip the covering off do this procedure before ever putting it into service.

there has been at least one instance where one of these FLYs that looked to be NOS arced over very soon after being put into service.

I think in the mean time I will be storing my backup flybacks in a very very dry area, after letting them bake in the attic on a dry summer month like May.