Twochai,
Even the VC10 made one hold one's breath on occasions. On take-offs from Entebbe at night at max weight when going north to London none of us believed there was enough stopping distance should an engine fail at V1. Crews were so concerned that one of BOAC's performance engineers was sent out to Entebbe to measure the actual performance achieved.
Of course it was correct and we were achieveing the book figures OK. The reason it looked so awful was that there were no obstacles at the end of the runway where the ground sloped down to Lake Victoria and one just seemed to depart into a black hole.