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Only two XF-11s were ever built, commissioned by the Army Air Forces as a photo-reconnaissance aircraft and designed and personally test-flown by Howard Hughes. The first prototype, 44-70155, crashed in Beverly Hills on July 7, 1946 when Hughes lost control after a propeller malfunction — the accident that nearly killed him and became a centerpiece of the 1947 Senate hearings into Hughes' wartime contracts. This photo is of the second aircraft, 44-70156, which Hughes flew successfully on its first flight from Muroc Dry Lake on April 5, 1947, fitted with conventional four-blade propellers after the redesign that followed the crash. The photo shows the aircraft banked hard in flight, gear extended, star-and-bar insignia on both wings, over a residential grid consistent with the Southern California test area. The Air Force ultimately passed on the design in favor of other reconnaissance types; this aircraft was redesignated XR-11 in 1948 and scrapped in 1949, making surviving period photography of it scarce.
Photo details: Original period print (not a modern reprint), 8" x 10", glossy finish on Kodak photographic paper (watermark visible on verso). No photographer credit, publication stamp, or caption on the back.
Provenance/authenticity note: No caption or press stamp accompanies this print, so it's offered as a vintage photograph consistent with official USAF/press release imagery of the period; the tail number is clearly legible and matches the documented serial for the second XF-11 prototype.
