The XF-11 was a reconnaissance-photographic, twin-boom, high wing monoplane manufactured by Hughes Aircraft Company.
Because of the atomic bomb, the need was greater than ever to know what other countries were doing. The United States government
contracted Howard Hughes to build a high altitude spy plane that could go above radar with a special camera using newly developed
fine grain film. The twenty-eight cylinder engines in the XF-11 developed more than enough power to the counter- rotating double
propellers designed to create more thrust. Thirty minutes into the flight, the gear boxes made for the counter-rotating propellers failed,
leaving Hughes without power and causing an out-of-control crash in Beverly Hills which destroyed two homes.
The wreck that he miraculously survived, left him scarred for life. The second prototype was equipped with single-rotating propellers.