---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: George Myers <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Feb 16, 2006 12:23 AM
Subject: Re: SHA symposium
To: "McAlexander, William" <[log in to unmask]>


I don't have anything firm to contribute. I was once associated with
the Gwynne's through the Stony Brook Anthropology department, that is
I met Mr. "Tom" Gwynne who was a F-14 test pilot for the Grumman
Corporation (they built the LEM Lunar Excursion Module used to land
and leave the Moon, some of my high school classmates parents were
from that industry) who sold 100 F-14 ("Top Gun" jets in the movie of
the same name) to the Shah of Iran. The company had a compound of 4000
employees and their families there before the Islamic Revolution and
the "hostage crisis" resulting from the students occupying the US
Embassy. They claim to be spied on here while attending school, by the
Savak, secret police operating with impunity in the US. Mrs. Gwynne
has a Ph.D. in Anthropology now (she helped teach the field school in
Long Island Archaeology taught by R.M. Gramly, Ph.D., also assisted by
Sherene Baugher, Ph.D. once the first NYC Landmarks Commission
Archaeologist and recently President of the Council for Northeastern
Historical Archaeology.

Interestingly Stony Brook University is "seizing" the property next
door for expansion which contained Gyrodyne, makers of coaxial
helicopters, manned and unmanned used in Vietnam and as submarine
hunters in the Cold War, can be seen online. I saw one one person
helicopter flying over the potato fields that became tract
developments near the university. I years ago tried to research the
adjoining property ran into a wall so to speak, for future impacts
there and it's amazing, the university may also owe their original
siting in part to them too.

So I have nothing per se to report on aviation archaeology but would
like to see it discussed at the SHA level.

George Myers