Leaders at the Aviation Museum haven’t decided which, if any, of their 34 planes they’ll put on display out front in the spot the Blackbird is vacating. But they’re glad to see it moving indoors, away from the weather and bird droppings that it has endured the past 15 years.

“I’m so happy it’s going to be under cover and visible to so many more people,” said Aviation Museum operations coordinator Edward Andrews, whose 15,000 annual visitors are dwarfed by the 300,000 who visit the Science Museum each year.

The Science Museum oversees operation of the Aviation Museum, which is at Richmond International Airport in eastern Henrico County.

After the plane is broken down into seven main pieces over the next few weeks and trucked to the Science Museum, the tricky part begins.

The plane, with its 55-foot wingspan, will be suspended in air near the rear of the museum’s rotunda, past the giant pendulum that hangs from the ceiling. But the walls inside the museum are only 49 feet wide, meaning the plane will have to hang at an angle.

So the parts will be pulled in through a hole cut into the museum’s back wall, then carefully put back together in a process something like building a ship in a bottle or moving a sofa into a new apartment.