The XF-11 was an aluminum redesign of the wooden D-2.
Howard Hughes, aviator, movie producer, and billionaire, was born in Houston, Texas, on Christmas Eve 1905 to Allene (Gano) and Howard Robard Hughes, Sr.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute was given ownership of Hughes Aircraft and sold it to General Motors in 1985 for $5 billion.
The XF-11 was an aluminum redesign of the wooden D-2.
Howard Hughes, aviator, movie producer, and billionaire, was born in Houston, Texas, on Christmas Eve 1905 to Allene (Gano) and Howard Robard Hughes, Sr.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute was given ownership of Hughes Aircraft and sold it to General Motors in 1985 for $5 billion.
After the war, he was seriously injured in a crash of the XF-11.
Its pilot was Hughes, who flew it a little over a mile and only reached an altitude of 70 feet, just to prove to his critics that it could get into the air.
Hughes set a straightway speed record of 212 miles per hour in 1933 and later won the sportsman pilot event of the All-American Air Meet.
The XF-11 was an aluminum redesign of the wooden D-2.
Howard Hughes, aviator, movie producer, and billionaire, was born in Houston, Texas, on Christmas Eve 1905 to Allene (Gano) and Howard Robard Hughes, Sr.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute was given ownership of Hughes Aircraft and sold it to General Motors in 1985 for $5 billion.
The Senate War Investigating Committee was formed by Ralph Owen Brewster in 1947 to investigate contracts delivered to Hughes Aircraft for the HughesXF-11 and Spruce Goose.
The committee accused Howard Hughes of corruption in the methods he used to obtain government contracts for the aircraft.
The Committee is depicted in the latter half of The Aviator, a movie about the life of Howard Hughes.
Roosevelt’s recommendations led to the development of the XF-11 (later XR-11) and its competitor, the XF-12 (later XR-12) aircraft.
Roosevelt had heard rumors of the D-2, a secretly-designed project developed by well-known millionaire Howard Hughes.
After flying a tour in Africa in F-5s, Col. Elliot Roosevelt, son of the late president, believed that aircraft must be designed around their specific mission requirements.
In 1946 he suffered horrific injuries when he crashed the XF-11, a reconnaissance plane of his own design, in Beverly Hills.
Moreover, his hopes of making Hughes Aircraft a major player in the industry took a knock when he was unable to deliver on two lucrative government contracts.
But the young Hughes had no interest in drill-bit manufacturing, taking his fortune to California and setting himself up as a movie producer.
The plane which would ultimately evolve into the F-11 had its genesis in 1939 under the Hughes Aircraft experimental model designation DX-2.
The fighter version of XF-11 was the XP-73 and the attack variant was designated the A-37.
Hughes originally proposed it as a bomber, but his true interest seems to have been the idea of constructing a large airplane by using the Duramold process.
TUNE-IN NOTICE: In 1946, one of the contra-rotating propellers on Howard Hughes' (Leonardo DiCaprio) experimental XF-11 reconnaissance plane goes into reverse thrust shortly after takeoff from a Culver City airfield, forcing him into a near-fatal crash landing that sends him careening into a Beverly Hills home.
HOW THEY DID IT: In their quest to sonically re-create the intricate details of both the engine failure (shown in CG close-up) and the crash, the sound team (headed by supervising sound editor Phil Stockton) didn't quite throw in everything, but at least part of the kitchen sink was utilized.
His great love -- aviation -- drives him to invent various aircraft (the H-1 Racer, the XF-11 spy plane, and the giant seaplane, the Hercules), set speed records, circle the world in four days and take over TWA.
DiCaprio, who's on screen almost every minute of this epic film, is utterly convincing as the legendary billionaire aviator, inventor, Hollywood producer and industrialist Howard Hughes.
Blanchett, though not a dead ringer for Hepburn, captures her voice and mannerisms impressively, and Jude Law's a passable Errol Flynn, though Gwen Stefani and Kate Beckinsale are a far cry from the real Jean Harlow and Gardner.
"Howard Hughes and his Flying Boat"; Timely book, great reading lots of nice pictures, lucludes his accounts of flying the XF-11 and other, soft bound, 280 pages (2 available)
Every detail explained of what you must know and the experience needed to fly the big stuff.
"Flying Colors", featuring over 1300 Military Aircraft Markings and Color Schemes, from WW 1 to Present Day!
Unlike Wright, P&W actually built and ran a few of their big "Hyper" H's before UAC's chairman convinced Gen. Arnold in the fall of 1940 that his company's resources were better used in other directions -- notably the XR-4360 "corncob" engine later used on the XF-11.
While Lockheed was cutting metal for the P-38, Hughes left in a Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra on July 10, 1938 to circumnavigate the globe.
Bodie says Hughes, who turned on his heels without a single courtesy, obviously learned nothing from the experience since he showed the same arrogance "a few years" later when he tried to sell the military on the Hughes D-2.
