This was not a good year for rocketry in Alberta. Most of the high-power launch events were cancelled due to fire restrictions; one was cancelled because of a big snowstorm.
The Edmonton Rocketry Club held a model rocketry launch at Calmar, on March 23rd. There was a nice turnout, and it was a sunny day. I launched my Ceres B2, flying on an Estes D12 motor. This was a simple test flight to about 300 ft, to see how well the 3d-printed parts would hold together. They didn’t!
The lower section of the rocket (“fin-can”) consisted of a tapered body tube, fins, motor mount, a clever motor retention method, and a built-in baffle. All of those parts were printed from PLA, which had worked well for me on previous rockets.
The Ceres B2 ignited properly but tipped slightly into the wind, due to the small area of the little fins. Flight was normal until apogee; when the ejection charge fired, the baffle exploded and the fin-can tumbled back on its own. The parachute did not eject, so the main rocket floated down and crash-landed with almost no damage.
Inspection of the fin-can showed that the baffle had partially melted; one of the fin tips had broken off on landing. If there is ever a Ceres B3, it will not use a PLA baffle and it will have proper-sized fins!
Later in the year, the Calmar launch site was plowed under to become a canola field! This was unexpected, but the site was renamed Cape Canola.