Description given with photograph: "Howard Hughes tests the Hughes plane. Seattle--Howard Hughes (right), millionaire aviation enthusiast and record holder, shown with Edmund T. Allen, Boeing test engineer, before they made a recent test flight in a Boeing-built Stratoliner. The huge machine was equipped with extra fuel tanks for the test. Hughes did not reveal the reasons for his interest in the four-motored, 30 passenger plane, designed for substratosphere flight."
Howard Hughes under the propeller of his Douglas DC-3 aircraft. The photo was taken right before or after his first flight since the nearly fatal XF-11 crash in 1946.