As chief flight instructor and head mechanic of the family-owned and operated FBO Terrell Aviation, John Hardin said he is often at the airport seven days a week. Hardin’s parents bought the FBO in the early ‘90s.
“I got like 13,000 hours, over 7,500 hours of it is teaching. A lot of the students went around and started buying airplanes. So, we help maintain all their airplanes and keep the airport rejuvenated that way, and keep all the flight school airplanes going,” he said.
Recently, Hardin received his Master CFI for the second time, holds a gold seal CFI, and has had his IA for three years. Previously, he had worked under his father before his passing.
While Hardin has worked on aircraft his entire life, he stumbled into the flight instructor side of the business.
“I was working on my instrument when I was in college, and one of the guys that was the instructor out there at the airport at the time, he got a job somewhere, didn’t tell anybody. So, when I showed up for a lesson, there was nobody there to teach that day. And a couple of his students were showing up, asking where he was at. I was in the shop waiting for him to show up too, and I was like, ‘You know? I could probably do what he was doing.’ So I went and did a couple of cram courses real quick to knock out my written exams. And I traveled around Kansas and Arkansas and a couple other places to get my instrument and commercial real quick. And I started teaching in 08,” he recounted.
Hardin says he enjoys flying and maintaining aircraft for different reasons: “It’s never the same thing twice. As far as flying goes, it keeps you right in the moment. You don’t have time to really think about what's happening next week or tomorrow. As far as the maintenance side, it takes, surprisingly, it takes very little to stand out in the crowd. When I look at some of the guys that have been maintaining some of these airplanes, they come to our shop, and I’m like, ‘How did you miss that?’ Just trying to be accurate. It’s been a lot of fun just going through and getting things in rig and having a customer come back and tell you how much better the airplane flies."
