Dear moderators, This is my first attempt to contribute to Wikipedia.
The U.S. Naval Aviation and its history is one of my favourite topics of research, and by submitting this article I am hoping to cover a certain gap in information. Many subjects related to the U.S. Navy are very well covered in Wikipedia from a number of different perspectives. However, I believe that the matter of aircraft tail codes and their association with particular units can still benefit from more systematic presentation.
The way I present the information (as one page with a long list of tables) may not be the best. However, splitting the information into multiple pages (e.g. a separate page per first letter of the tail code) is even less appealing to me because: a) this way we would lose the quick search (Ctrl F) option; b) we would end up with very uneven distribution of data, as some code letters (such as "O" and "I") may have only a single unit associated with them while other letters may have dozens if not hundreds. I would value your advice in case a better approach can be contrived.
Besides that, you will see that I did not add any inline references into my tables. I tried to, but after processing only around 25% of my data I ended up with an unsightly list of 200+ references cluttering the bottom of the page. All of those references looked alike (e.g. "Doll, Jackson, Riley 1985, p.20") and did not add any real value, in my humble opinion. I estimate that if I were to provide an inline reference for every piece of data that I have actually used, the list of such references would go into the thousands. Again, I would appreciate advice here.
Thank you. Alex