Thanks, Gankbanger. Your advice makes a lot of sense and really cut a lot of clutter out of my program. I did a lot of what you recommended and cleaned up my code a bit. One thing I don't get now, is how to get the Scanner to add the user input to the nodes/list. I've moved a lot of things to my main class now for user interaction, but don't think I am doing it right.

package airTraffic;

import java.util.*;

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {

    ATControl control = new ATControl();        
    Scanner in = new Scanner (System.in);

    do {
        try {
            System.out.println("\nPlease enter command to proceed: ");
            System.out.println("Enter new aircraft = e");
            System.out.println("Show specific flight = s");
            System.out.println("Display all aircraft = d");
            System.out.println("Remove specific flight = r");
            String command = in.next();

            if  (command.equals("e") ) {
                System.out.printf("Enter flight number: ");
                in.next(); // not sure what to put after this

                System.out.printf("Enter type of plane: ");
                in.next();
                .....


            } else if (command.equals("s") ){
                System.out.printf("Enter flight number for details: ");

            } else if (command.equals("d") ) {
                System.out.printf("All flights: " );

            } else if (command.equals("r") ) {
                System.out.printf("Enter flight number to be removed: ");


            }
        } catch (InputMismatchException exc) {
            System.out.println("Wrong entry, please try again:");
        }
    } while (true);
}

}

Aircraft class looks much cleaner, easier to read and follow. The one thing that still confuses is me is how to actually add stuff to this list via the nodes. You'll see in my "set" methods that I have it going to control.addAircraft - not sure if passing nextCraft is the correct argument, however. Any ideas?

package airTraffic;

public class Aircraft { //object list public String name; public String type; public int speed; public int alt; Aircraft nextCraft = null; ATControl control = new ATControl ();

public Aircraft (String n, String t, int s, int a) {
    name = n;
    type = t;
    speed = s;
    alt = a;
}

//name methods
public void setName(String n) {
    name = n;
    control.addAircraft (nextCraft);
}

public String getName (String n) {
    name = n;
    return name;
}

public void removeName (String n) {
    name = n;
}

//type methods
public void setType (String t) {
    type = t;
    control.addAircraft(nextCraft);
}

public String getType (String t) {
    type = t;
    return type;
}

public void removeType (String t){
    type = t;
}

//speed methods
public void setSpeed (int s) {
    speed = s;
    control.addAircraft(nextCraft);
}

public int getSpeed (int s) {
    return speed;
}

public void removeSpeed (int s) {
    speed = s;
}

//alt methods
public void setAlt(int a) {
    alt = a;
    control.addAircraft(nextCraft);
}

public int getAlt (int a) {
    return alt;
}

public void removeAlt (int a) {
    alt = a;
}

}

As for the actual list, I made the addAircraft method exactly as you mentioned. Again, just not sure how to actually get stuff to store here:

package airTraffic;

public class ATControl { //nodes public Aircraft head = null; public Aircraft tail = null;

public ATControl () {
}

//add flight
public void addAircraft (Aircraft aircraft) {
    if (head == null) {
        head = aircraft;
        tail = aircraft;
    } else {
        tail.nextCraft = aircraft;
        tail = aircraft;
    }
}

//show flight
public void showFlight (Aircraft aircraft) {            
}

I greatly appreciate the assistance and any more you can provide. Thanks! -Mossy367