TYPE: Long-range reconnaissance-aircraft

ACCOMMODATION: Crew of two

POWER PLANT: Pratt & Whitney R-4360-31 Wasp Major, rated at 3,000 hp each

PERFORMANCE: 450 mph

COMMENT: The Hughes XF-11 was designed as a long-range reconnaissance aircraft. Its design based on the Hughes D-2, a fighter and bomber project of early 1940, and resembled somewhat to the Lockheed P-38 Lightning but was much greater. So it had a tricycle landing-gear, two engines, twin boom and a pressurized central crew nacelle. In 1943 the USAAF ordered 100 F-11s, but only two examples were completed immediately after WWII. The first aircraft crashed in 1946 with Howard Hughes at the controls and the second prototype was completed and successfully flown in 1947. (Ref.: 23)