Harold Kosola of Kosola and Associates in Albany, Georgia poses with one of his more than 33,000 engine mount rebuilds, an Ag-Cat engine mount. Adjacent to him is a rebuilt S2R Thrush landing gear leg and behind him is a PA-25 Piper Pawnee fuselage ready for the forward wing fuselage attachment cluster kit. Further in the background is a partial view of the hundreds of engine mounts in Kosola’s 25,000+ square foot storage building, waiting to be rebuilt.

by Bill Lavender

ALBANY, GA — Dear Mr. Kosola; All necessary tests and inspections pertaining to the installation of an XYZ are complete. Accordingly, we (FAA) are enclosing Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) 0000000.

These words have been written in a letter to Harold Kosola on many, many occasions. Actually, more than 60 times for STCs of every sort, from Boeing 727s to a series of Piper general aviation aircraft, including the Pawnee, to the Ayres Thrush and many more types of aircraft.

Harold Kosola, owner of Kosola and Associates based in Albany, Georgia, is a specialist when it comes to obtaining aviation STCs. The ability to own so many varied STCs is an attribute to his engineering skills. Designated Airworthiness Representative (DAR) and Designated Engineer Representative (DER) are titles he has earned in the aviation field with his Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Embry-Riddle in Miami, Florida and the Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa, Oklahoma. However, Harold’s real experience started when he signed on with Piper and became a DER under Piper’s Designated Organization Approval (DOA). This was in the 1960s, where Harold worked for seven years in development and certification.

Along with Harold’s ability to address aircraft design and obtain an inordinate number of STCs, Kosola and Associates is the world’s largest FAA approved repair station for engine mounts and tubular steel components. Since the first PA-32 engine mount was built under an FAA Form 337 in 1975, Kosola and Associates has repaired, or built, over 33,000 engine mounts, to include the Turbine Thrush, Turbine M18 Dromader, Turbine Brave and Tiara Brave, among a long list of general aviation aircraft.
“One winter day in 1974, when I was at my ‘office/shop’ here in Albany, babysitting my daughter, Kimberly, I received a phone call from someone trying to sell me something. They asked me the name of my company and without thinking but wanting a fancy-sounding name, I quickly replied, ‘Kosola and Associates’. The name stuck and Kimberly was my first ‘Associate’”. Thus begins the story of Kosola and Associates, formed by Harold Kosola, but the story actually begins many years earlier.
It’s important to understand how Harold’s life evolved in the years before Kosola and Associates. It was not completely by accident that a series of jobs led him to own a company with so many and varied STCs and repair and building a great number of engine mounts.

Harold Kosola graduated by accident from Miami Edison High in 1955. He had failed 12th grade, with all of Miami’s distractions, but the school miscounted his credits and graduated him anyway. He wanted to work and travel in South America, but that was not to be until much later. For his first aviation job, he worked at Aerodex at Miami International Airport for four years. At Aerodex, Harold got his first taste of aviation maintenance as a parts cleaner, working his way to inspector and finally a certified Zyglo inspector, working on radial engines.
Harold got a job with Transport Company of Texas and was transferred to Kwajalien Atoll, Marshall Islands in the South Central Pacific. He performed radio-navigation checks, engine maintenance and aircraft servicing on Military Air Transport (MAT) aircraft. With not many places to spend his money, he saved up a nice nest egg that helped out in the not too far future, while taking correspondence courses in aeronautical engineering.

Returning to the States, Harold took his savings and attended the Spartan School of Aeronautics in 1960, earning a diploma in Jet Engine Maintenance and Overhaul. By now, the aviation bug had bitten Harold pretty hard. It was fast becoming evident aviation would become his life-long career.
From 1960 through 1963, Harold attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Institute in Miami, earning a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aeronautical Engineering. Fresh out of Embry-Riddle, Harold landed a job with Piper Aircraft Corporation in Vero Beach, Florida. This is where Harold’s hands on engineering skills began. With Piper, Harold worked in many phases of engineering testing, primarily on the PA-28 and PA-32 series aircraft.

After seven years at Piper, next in Harold’s career came a job with Rockwell International, Aero Commander Division in Albany, Georgia. He worked as Chief Engineer, Project Coordinator and Structures—Staff Engineer during from 1970 – 1973.

Rockwell wanted to move its facility to Oklahoma. While tubing the Suwannee River with his wife, Joan, and two daughters, Kimberly and Kristen, he decided Albany would remain their home. So, he quit Rockwell and started a plastic magnetic sign business, while Joan worked as an RN at the local hospital.

The sign business was growing, having to move out of the home office to a small shop in town. Harold also took on a part time job with Jimmy Chammoun, who had set up a welding shop, Precision Fabricators and had a contract to build airplane parts for Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation in Savannah, Georgia and the S-2R Thrush for Fred Ayres. Ayres had bought the Type Certificate for the Thrush from Rockwell and was building the aircraft at Ayres Corporation in Albany, Georgia. Ag-aviation is beginning to enter into Harold’s life.

About this time, Piper Aircraft contacted Harold for engineering work; this was in addition to the sign making company and work at Precision Fabricators, resulting in working 12-16 hours a day, seven days a week. Other small aeronautical engineering jobs were coming in, with one from Continental Motors in Mobile, Alabama. Continental wanted Harold to design an engine mount for their new “Tiara” engine to be used on the Piper PA-32. Harold started the design drawings when Continental called again and asked that he build the engine mount he was designing. He agreed and went to Precision Fabricators for a place to begin his project. This was how the Kosola and Associates engine mount business started.

During this process, Kosola and Associates received an FAA Repair Station certification (No. 70146) on June 8, 1976. This allowed the company to Yellow Tag engine mount repairs. At the time, the FAA commented Kosola and Associates was the only FAA-approved repair station repairing tubular steel engine mounts.

That same year, Fred Ayres contacted Harold to help design the engine mount for the PT6 installation on the Thrush. This was the first turbine engine to be installed on an ag-plane with FAA approval. In 1979, Ayres called again, asking for help to design and perform static testing of the S-2R two-place trainer.

By this time, Kosola and Associates was growing and adding engineering personnel for STC projects located all over the world on all types of aircraft, including Lockheed, Boeing, Douglas and Gulfstream. Ag-plane STCs involved the installation of an IO-720 on the Cessna Ag-Truck, a PT6 installation on the M18 Dromader, Grumman Ag-Cat and Piper PA-36. There was also STC work on installing the TPE-331 on the M18 and an IO-540 on the Cessna Ag Truck, a two-place M18, a new design tail wheel on the S-2R and the twin engine Grumman Ag-Cat “Twin Cat”.

As the Kosola and Associates projects grew, it caused Harold to move from Precision Fabricators to Turner Air Force Base in Albany, Georgia in 1977. The Air Force left the base, giving it to the Navy, who later gave it to the city. The city sold the base to Miller Brewing Company, thus Kosola and Associates had to move again.

Incorporating Kosola and Associates in August 1979, Harold set up shop on Broad Avenue in Albany. Airport property at that time was not practical. However, in 1987 Kosola and Associates moved to its present location on Newton Road adjacent to the Albany airport. Today, the five acres contains six buildings, including a 25,600 square foot building to store engine mounts, tooling and miscellaneous parts and equipment. On the property is an employee fishpond (actually a water reclamation site) as well as the “Metropolitan Shop” where Harold enjoys his love for the restoration of the Nash Metropolitan car and shipping parts worldwide.

In ag-aviation, probably the two best-known STCs held by Kosola and Associates is the Pawnee permanent fuselage modification that prevents the Pawnee wing from separating from the fuselage while in flight and the Ayres Thrush aluminum covered horizontal tail.

The Thrush tail kit replaces the fabric on the tail on the older model Thrush aircraft built before the factory designed the all-metal tail. The modification reduces vibration and hinge and trim tab wear with minimum weight change. It allows for easy clean out and eliminates any more fabric worries for the horizontal tail section.
A few years ago the FAA issued AD 95-12-01 on the Piper PA-25 Pawnee. “I remember when I was working at Piper and there were discussions about the wing to fuselage fitting, which was a welded two-piece fitting, that corrosion could occur in the two mating surfaces at the bolt hole. The final decision of the head engineer was, ‘it will never happen’. Thirty years later, the FAA issued the AD.

“Since I knew of the problem, we at Kosola and Associates developed a modification and the FAA issued STC # SA00992AT and Parts Manufacturing Approval (PMA). This STC eliminates the costly inspection requirements of the AD. Kosola and Associates holds this STC, not only in the U.S., but Canada, Sweden, Australia and Argentina, as well, with installations centers in these countries. We can also install the modification at our facility here in Albany or at Mid-Continent Aircraft Corporation in Hayti, Missouri,” explain Harold.

Harold is always working on some project or another, receiving an STC or doing the design work for someone else’s STC. It seems he never stops. “One of my more recent projects, which I call a ‘big ag plane’, is the modification of the Lockheed 188, a four-engine ‘Electra’ cargo airplane that has been modified to carry 3,000 gallons of oil dispersant chemicals with spray booms mounted to the wings. The first ‘Electra’ was modified and approved in England and is used to spray oil dispersants over oil spills.”

Fifty years of aviation in the life of Harold Kosola have brought the ag-aviation many new and better designs. From working his way through college, cleaning parts at an engine overhaul shop, running a plastic sign shop and heading up an engineering department, have allowed Harold to bring to ag-aviation Kosola and Associates, an innovative company that has helped ag-aviation modification dreams come true and most likely saved the lives of Pawnee pilots worldwide.
For more information go to www.kosola.com.