Wheels Up

The Pentagon announced this month that Brig. Gen. Kevin Magnum will head its new aviation subordinate command, headquartered at Ft. Bragg, NC. Magnum is currently the deputy commanding general-center at U.S. Division-Center in Iraq, according to a May 3 announcement on the Defense Department's website.

As first reported by Inside the Pentagon, the idea to create a new aviation subordinate command under U.S. Army Special Operations Command was spawned by findings in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, as well as subsequent Army force structure decisions, Col. Steve Mathias, director of special operations aviation at USASOC, said last December.

The new aviation command will be headquartered at Ft. Bragg NC, and be organized in the same structure as USASOC’s Special Forces subordinate command.

The Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), known as the Night Stalkers, will be folded under the new provisional command once the organization is fully stood up, Mathias said at the time. Along with the 160th SOAR’s fleet of combat rotorcraft -- including the MH-60 Black Hawk, A/MH-6M Little Bird and MH-47 Chinook -- the new subordinate command would also be responsible for the command’s growing fleet of unmanned aircraft.

Magnum is also a former commander of the 160th SOAR.