Eugene's John Stahr delivers another SEXY ship:
Meet Chris Hill's “R” rated RVette-8
6:25 PM
By Dan Pimentel,
Airplanista Blog Editor
It was just another overcast day in Southern Oregon a couple of weeks back when my EAA chapter got together to try and fly some Young Eagles flights at Eugene's Mahlon Sweet Field (KEUG). The weather guessers said it'd be 5,000OVC by the time we got the kids strapped in, but the deck never lifted, so we scrubbed our good deeds for the day.
About the time we were set to break up our non-party, aviation airbrush artist to the Stars, John Stahr, showed up asking for a little help moving a couple of RV-8 wings into a storage hangar. So a group of us hopped on his trailer for the short ride in the gate, next to a pair of wings so fresh out of the shop, you could still smell the BASF Diamont paint.
Yes, my flying friends, we were being introduced to Chris Hill's phenomenal RVette-8, a stunning work of flying art so gorgeous, it has quickly become known as a ramp magnet each time it stops for fuel. In fact, when his father, George, flew the finished airplane back to the Gulf Coast, it drew a crowd everywhere he stopped. At a fuel stop in Vernal, Utah, the pilot texted Stahr and said "so far two stops.....I feel like an Art Gallery guide!"
Hill, a B-52 pilot currently on deployment, and his father started building the RV-8 in 1998 and finally flew it in 2010. How it became known as the RVette-8 is a great story:
“Like a lot of RVs before paint,” said Hill, “it was gray primer and bare aluminum before I started thinking about a paint job that was classy and elegant. Being in the Air Force, I kept using blue as the main color for the paint scheme until I realized it should match the 2003 50th anniversary Corvette given to me as a gift by my father while I was in the Air Force Academy. That's where John Stahr comes in.”
“His work on the airplane in the VAF post I saw was awesome. It was obvious to me that he is an artist. It wasn't just a paint job, it was literally a work of art. I wanted to honor my dad's work on this plane, so after working with John on the paint scheme, we arrived at what you see in the pictures. It has all of my requirements in it: 50th Anniversary Corvette Red, 50th Anniversary Champagne Checkers, polished aluminum, fantastic nose art, and most of all an elegant yet racy look. As a really smooth bit of art, John painted this smokin' hot girl on the bottom of the plane, barely clothed, aside from the checkered flag that billows around her. We used my wife as a model for the girl, and I'm happy to say she was really all for it. The funny thing is, she tells her friends about it and they get all excited too.”

Be forewarned as you approach the sexy and stunning RVette-8 and crawl underneath. If you have a weak ticker, or have taken yet another handful of vitamin “V”, you had better avert your eyes. And if your kid is still in grade school...daddy, you might have some explaining to do.
0 comments