Can attest to the fighter thing. He almost made the runway, only deciding that it was time to eject when he looked up, and, despite being at the best glide angle of 35 degrees nose up, the scrub trees were visible above the front of the aircraft. Then put his trust in messrs Martin and Baker, and pulled his legs in, and kissed his ass goodbye. He felt, due to the way the ejection system has a half second delay to allow the canopy clearing charges to operate, the aircraft impact the dry river bed he was in, before he left. 200m from the runway threshold, but there was a small rise, and a rather impressive wall, before he would have landed. Nobody believed he could have gotten 12km from the point that the vulture got ingested, especially as at that time he was doing an air show.