A-12 — Central Intelligence Agency Museum, Langley, VA

This photo is the A-12 when it was located at the Minnesota Air National Guard Museum. The Blackbird had just arrived. It was reassembled, but not yet painted.

This aircraft was hijacked by the US AF Museum and handed over to the CIA in 2007 to be used as a pylon display at the CIA HQ building in Langley, Virginia. Losing the A-12 was a bitter pill for the ANG museum to handle given that the museum had invested so much time, effort, and money in recovering the A-12. In fact, the ANG museum is in the process of raising funds for a new purpose-built aviation museum at Fort Snelling. That project suffered a blow when the centerpiece aircraft was pulled by the USAF and given to another organization, one who will not be able to display the aircraft for the public to view.