On August 11, Howard Hughes showed the group his Culver City aircraft factory, then personally flew them to see the private-venture Hughes D-2, an experimental twin-engine wooden aircraft then being test-flown at a Hughes facility at Harper Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert. The aircraft had already been turned down ten months earlier by Chief of Army Air Forces Material Division Oliver P. Echols, for being inadequate to military service; it was considered unlikely to become successful for numerous reasons, wooden construction and Hughes's limited facilities among them. Roosevelt and his committee, however, fervently recommended the D-2. When Roosevelt returned to the East Coast of the United States, Meyer hosted another round of parties and nightclub outings in Manhattan and arranged for Faye Emerson to accompany Roosevelt. Among many favors, Meyer gave Emerson $132 worth of nylon stockings, a rare treat during wartime rationing.