Description given with photo: "Spotlight in Washington, Washington: Howard Hughes (left foreground) smiling faces battery of cameras before starting his testimony at Senate War Investigating Subcommittee's hearing on his wartime plane contracts. The room, normally seating about 300, was pack with 1,000 spectators. Credit (ACME) 8-7-47."
Transcribed from attached press release: "HUGHES TEST-PILOTS SECOND XF-11. CULVER CITY, Calif., April 5. Preparatory to making its first flight test today, Howard Hughes, famed flier-industrialist, is shown in the cockpit of the second XF-11 sister ship to the plane in which he almost lost his life in an accident last July 7. Hughes designed and built the ship, one of the world's fastest long-range reconnaissance planes for the Army Air forces in conjunction with the Air Materiel Command engineers."