Back in the 1960's BOAC used to operate a once per week Comet 4 service to my home port which at the time was a typical military runway made up of precast hexagonal concrete blocks. The Comet was the only commercial jet using this runway and used to employ early nose wheel lifting on take off similar to the B36. I was told this was to reduce damage to the runway (and possibly the aircraft) caused by the jet efflux throwing up debris from the gaps between the concrete blocks. It was interesting to see the Comet barreling down the runway with its nose gear in the air until it gently flew off. Once fully airborne the aircraft would rotate quickly to its normal climb attitude.