The order for 100 F-11s was reduced at the end of the war to just three. (Materiel Command did succeed in mandating that the F-11 be made of aluminum, unlike its wooden D-2 predecessor.) Arnold made the decision "much against my better judgment and the advice of my staff" after consultations with the White House. In this, Arnold overrode the strenuous objections of the USAAF Materiel Command, which held that Hughes did not have the industrial capacity or proven track record to deliver on his promises. Army Air Forces, ordered 100 F-11s for delivery beginning in 1944. On the urgent recommendation of Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, who led a team surveying several reconnaissance aircraft proposals in September 1943, General Henry "Hap" Arnold, chief of the U.S. Due to constant problems with the contra-rotating propulsion system, the second prototype had regular single four-bladed propellers.
Each engine drove a pair of contra-rotating four-bladed, controllable-pitch propellers, which can increase performance and stability, at the cost of increased mechanical complexity. The XF-11 used Pratt & Whitney R-4360-31 28-cylinder radial engines. It was a tricycle-gear, twin-engine, twin-boom all-metal monoplane with a pressurized central crew nacelle, with a much larger span and much higher aspect ratio than the P-38's wing. A highly modified version of the earlier private-venture Hughes D-2 project, in configuration the aircraft resembled the World War II Lockheed P-38 Lightning, but was much larger and heavier. Specifications called for a fast, long-range, high-altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft. While Hughes had designed its predecessors to be fighter variants, the F-11 was intended to meet the same operational objective as the Republic XF-12 Rainbow.
The second Hughes XF-11 during a 1947 test flight For the near-Earth asteroid, see (35396) 1997 XF11.