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On October 5th, 1943 over Petsamo, pilot Uffz. Hans Kleeman became lost and ran out of fuel. He bailed out and survived with only minor injuries. Black 3 lay on the side of a mountain in Norway for 40 years. The aircraft was found and recovered with several others over a period of 3 years, from 1983 to 1986. Much of the original German camouflage paint still covered the fighter.

    Black 3, along with at least 3 other FW-190 airframes, were traded to the Texas Air Museum in return for restoration work to bring it back to static condition for the museum. "White 1", "Blue 5", "Yellow 9", and "Black 3" were all restored to static condition in the 1990s. Black 3 was returned to the museum in Norway for display but was never assembled.

    In 2004, the museum decided it wanted a higher quality of restoration work performed on their FW-190. They made a deal with the White 1 Foundation which restoring FW-190 F8 "White 1" to flying condition. The agreement is to bring "Black 3" up to museum quality standards in exchange for assistance from the government of Norway for the White 1 Foundation.

Black 3 was disassembled and loaded into a Norwegian Air Force C-130. An 18 hour flight from Norway to St. Joseph, Missouri brought the FW-190 back to the US. Guttorm Fjeldstad, a museum volunteer since 1994 and now "Black 3" liaison, accompanied the airframe and crates of restoration parts across the Atlantic in the Hercules.

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Now located in Kissimmee, Florida, Black 3 is at the White 1 Foundation's facility. It is a multi-year restoration project to return this German fighter to its original wartime condition for static display.