Simon, you should have heard a Space Shuttle from THREE miles away. Or at Atlas from ONE.
I remember an early Trident missile launch in which I escorted the press videographers to a viewing site only one mile from the pad. I specifically briefed them that if it blew, they were to instantly jump down behind the dirt berm on which we were standing, because the blast wave from a high-order detonation of that kind of propellant was a high fraction of the Hiroshima bomb. It launched, got about 100 feet in the air - and blew up.
I ht the dirt, the "graphers" kept filming, and by good luck the missile did not detonate as powerfully as it could have. But it still knocked all of them enough to lose their balance and tip over their camera tripods. One helluva fireworks show! I got a dirty uniform (I was USAF at the time) and they got some very interesting video - which is the only thing they cared about.
Last edited by RockyRaab; 05/30/20.
