"...Saturn V..."
It must have been absolutely amazing.
It took over 15 sec for the sound to reach you because of the 3.5 mile safety limit.....started as a low rumble you felt through your whole body. After it cleared the tower the crackle literally beat you in the chest. It was loudest as it pitched over....I mean oh my God beat you loud...nothing more spectacular.
I cannot imagine how loud spacecraft launches must be if attended live.
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204db at the source.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20120003777.pdf
I saw two shuttle launches when I was a child. The sound was amazing. It is not a smooth sounding thrust. It is more like a machine gun of explosions,one after the other, Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! If you have good speakers, some youtube videos have an accurate sound.
In late 1968 and early 69 I was living close to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and witnessed two or three Saturn launches. We never knew when they were going to be launched but there was no mistaking them they were at night and they lit the sky up like daylight and they were so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think. Overall very spectacular.
I have not seen nor heard a Saturn launch but I have witnessed quite a few other launches out at Vandenberg AFB, CA and they are loud and they shake everything for miles.
The largest launch vehicle I have witnessed was a Titan IV and it was spectacular. The smallest was the Minuteman ICBM (I even got to turn keys on one of those babies once!) and even they create a racket for many miles.
I’ve seen 3 Saturn 5 launches, Apollo 16, 17, and Skylab. I was just outside the VAB for the Skylab launch. So I had the VAB behind me as a sounding board and the S5 on pad 39A in front. It was impressive.