C J Campbell wrote:
If you say you have runaway trim, a
hijacker, or a large flying octopus that has covered your entire
windshield, it is an emergency, whether you 'declare' one or not.

If it's a giant squid instead of an octopus would it still be an emergency?
How about a monster in the aft circuitry room?

I've seen those kinds of things on the old TV series "Voyage to the Bottom
of the Sea" and I can't remember if they ever declared an emergency. Of
course their altitude was rather low at the time. As I recal, their vehicle
had canards on the front but rather small stubby wings; here's a picture of
them at takeoff:

http://www.omenaheights.com/voyage_b...sea_breach.jpg

(I suppose the kinds of emergencies experienced on that show now explains
why aircraft don't have circuitry rooms and composite hull construction has
never been popular. If you have to dislodge the giant octopus/squid/monster
attached to the hull, there's nothing like running 100,000V through the
hull. But that's not so easy to do if the hull is an electrical insulator.)