FORT WORTH, TX — It has gone by names like “Dorito” and “UFO.” And for a long while, its future was in peril.
 
But thanks to some North Texas aircraft fanatics and aviation old-timers, the mockup of the A-12A Avenger Stealth Fighter — developed by General Dynamics in Fort Worth but never built — is expected to emerge with a fresh coat of paint at the B-36 Peacemaker Museum near Meacham Airport.
 
“It’s really great that it didn’t get destroyed,’’ said Bob Adams, president/CEO of the B-36 Peacemaker Museum. “It’s a cool aircraft. When you see it, everybody is going to think it’s a spaceship. People just don’t realize how much has been built in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.”
 
Early Friday, separate sections of the mockup — two 17-foot wing tips and a 40-foot main cabin — were transported from Lockheed to the museum on flat-bed trailer trucks. “It was quite a sight,” Adams said. “We stopped a lot of folks on Loop 820.”
 
The Avenger made it safely to a back lot of the museum, Adams said late Friday afternoon. “She is parked, ready to be put back together,’’ he said.
 
The mockup of the two-engine fighter with no rudder is the only thing that’s left of the A-12A Avenger program, which was under development in Fort Worth until 1991.
 
Piece of North Texas aviation history moved to museum at Meacham