"a" wrote in message
...

Would you say he was compulsive?

Perhaps he just had a will to live? Back in my sailplane instructing days,
I taught my students to not wrap their fingers around certain controls,
particularly on takeoff. Reason? A jolt (we took off on grass) could make
you accidently pull a control. That could disconnect you from the towplane
if you pulled the release (the same as your engine quitting on takeoff)
or...if you accidently pulled the spoilers open, our towplane would no
longer be powerful enough to keep us flying.

Vaughn