re: Speaking of Big Birds...
Apparently when they launched Apollo 4 with the first Saturn 5 in 1968, the blast tore the roof off the ABC News structure and they had to damper things down a bit with a water system after that.
Now just imagine the Soviet's N-1 taking off with its 30 clustered engines. And I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere nearby when one of them fell onto a nearby launch pad and vaporized the poor thing.