"Geoff Miller" wrote in message ...


How did the United States ever draw "N" as a registration
number prefix, anyway? You'd think it would be "U" for
"United States," or "A" for "America."

In Radio callsigns the US got half the A's, the K's, the W's and the N's.
The A and N are for Army and Navy. I have no idea how we settled
on K and W.


Related question: How did Northwest Airlines get "US" as a
registration number suffix?

The suffixes aren't assigned to a particular airline. The airline requests
them when the register the aircraft. Most likely NWA acquired those
particular planes from US Air. You see lots of Continental livery with
xxxPE numbers from the old People Express day.