This aircraft was not designed to be a fighter! It is a high altitude recon air craft with long range capability. Why does every nut keep on harping on it being a redesign of a p38 which was a awwaaaii fighter aircraft and a good one two. The only other aircraft built to meet the AAF specification for which Hughes designed the XF-11 was the equally spectacular Republic XF-12 Rainbow, which was an even larger four-engine aircraft.
I suppose the most appropriate comparison would be to say that this was aircraft was meant to have been the SR-71 of the 1940s. Apart from everything else, with a take-off weight of over 58,000 pounds, it would have been far to big and heavy ever to have been a fighter. The F-11 was not a fighter, it was specifically designed to be a long-range, high-altitude, high-speed photo-reconnaissance platform. There was no relation between the P-38 and this aircraft, except for the fact that they shared the same basic twin-boom configuration. The reversal of pitch of one of those contra-rotating props caused the crash of the first prototype, nearly killing Hughes. The photos show the second prototype, which was built without the contra-rotating propellers which caused Hughes so much trouble. Does anyone know what happened to the 2nd prototype 47-1056? This plane is another example of the government not buying the best plane for the job.
A second aircraft flew on 5 April 1947 and subsequently went to Eglin Field, Florida (now Eglin Air Force Base), to be tested, but the US Air Force cancelled the programme in favour of utilizing the much more economical Boeing RB-50 to meet the long-range photo-reconnaissance requirement. The flight ending in a crash that nearly cost pilot Howard Hughes his life. Twin-engined, twin-boom monoplane flew for the first time on 7 July 1946 but lost a propeller, Designed specifically for long-range photographic reconnaissance, the Hughes XR-11 (formerly XF-11)