there's never a set number of how many fighters or bombers you should have. it all depend on your play style.

since you tend to do fighter cover most of the time, a 5th or 6th fighter may help you a lot in becoming more efficient. In doing so you may drop down to just using 2 or 3 bombers. Many people say that this is the setup you "should" have just because its more beneficial in fleet wars or more serious battles.
Doing the opposite setup with more bombers is definitely also usable in GBs and can be very fun and deadly if you can control it right.
And its natural for the BO to get more exp than the crew. Just stay in the lower tier ship until your pilots are ready for the bigger ship so that they are not too much below the ship level.

As for planesman, high potential is the most important thing. But planesman ability caps out anyways so I wouldnt worry too much about that.

look at the "View Old Data" in each forum. All the old posts are still there and some are still useful

I play a Japanese carrier the hiryu, I do have a bogue but my pilots and crew arent ready yet, The way I play in my Hiryu is immediately ready

2 flights of fighters 2 per flight and send them middleish and one either north or south whererver im headed
I ready 4 torpedo bombers or dive bombers at the same time, soon as i launch the fighter ill launch my 3rd flight of fighters with 4 more fighters in that next flight, I then launch the torpedo bomber and look for either a Sub or AA whore I find hitting AAwhores are easier then Dbing them, and if you adjust altitude with , and l youll have a great chance to hit them. Then ill ready additional fighters flights while trying to keep out one flight of bombers at all times.

While This is another nations carrier i feel the style or principal can be adapted easily and I usually have pretty equal exp for my pilots, I run 3 fighter pilots 2 torpedo and 2 bomber (leveling one bomber on ship and cant use that 2nd one yet).

Hopefully that helps, otherwise please disregard.

In terms of the S class planes man I feel that is right. Though Id try leveling him on one of your gunships as i feel youll get more experience that way and get him back up to a useable level.

I play a Japanese carrier the hiryu, I do have a bogue but my pilots and crew arent ready yet, The way I play in my Hiryu is immediately ready

2 flights of fighters 2 per flight and send them middleish and one either north or south whererver im headed
I ready 4 torpedo bombers or dive bombers at the same time, soon as i launch the fighter ill launch my 3rd flight of fighters with 4 more fighters in that next flight, I then launch the torpedo bomber and look for either a Sub or AA whore I find hitting AAwhores are easier then Dbing them, and if you adjust altitude with , and l youll have a great chance to hit them. Then ill ready additional fighters flights while trying to keep out one flight of bombers at all times.

While This is another nations carrier i feel the style or principal can be adapted easily and I usually have pretty equal exp for my pilots, I run 3 fighter pilots 2 torpedo and 2 bomber (leveling one bomber on ship and cant use that 2nd one yet).

Hopefully that helps, otherwise please disregard.

In terms of the S class planes man I feel that is right. Though Id try leveling him on one of your gunships as i feel youll get more experience that way and get him back up to a useable level.

unlike BB where your gunners have to be in line with your BO and identical to each other in reload and such, CV have a bit more leeway. Especially when people pick up extra pilots along the way, they can be well above or below the rest of the crew.

It is ok for your pilots to be a little behind the BO (not extreme where a BB player puts T2 on a Ticonderoga run by his 120 Eng).

Example, if you have a lvl 79 essex BO and some of your ftrs are 75 (barely t3), 79 (at lvl), 85, it wont terribly hinder you since they are all using the same planes. Eventually you would want them to use T4 at the same time though.

Now whether you want to play yorktown at this point to compensate your lvl 75 or essex for more plane space is up to you. no one can tell the difference if they see all t3 fly off your deck whereas a gunship with obvious lower tier guns (yammy with nagato guns looks pretty bad).

You sound like you know what youre doing an managing your ftrs so as long as the BBs dont see locals coming out of Cv3 they wont bash you too hard.

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to your ship set up.
You just need to find a good balance of what works for you, and suits your playstyles and preferences the best.

It's like raising a kid. There is no magic formula that works for all.
You simply go with what you feel gives you the optimal chance of success.