This talk about barriers reminds me of an incident we had at Coltishall whilst I was going through the Lightning OCU.
There was an very new USAF instructor on the staff and on said sortie he was demonstrating a reheat takeoff in the T5 which was done with the flaps down. Now, the T5 was heavier at the front end than the single seaters and the flaps could give quite a strong nose down pitching moment plus on this demo only the top reheat lit giving a further nose down push. No problem but the a/c would have left the ground in a flat attitude rather than the nose wheel coming off some time before the mains in the conventional manner. As he tried to raise the nose at @155kts, nothing happened so our hero decided to abort the takeoff (as I said, he was very new to the Lightning). He shouted sh*t, the stude thought he said 'chute' so pulled the handle, as the burner was still lit the chute disappeared in a ball of flame with the a/c approaching the barrier going very quickly. They pulled the barrier out of the ground and shot across the subsequent ploughed field with the whole lot nearly parked on the Norwich/Cromer railway line, highly amusing at the time.