ActionScript 3.0 :: Where To Create Array Of Items (Which Class File)

This is a hard question to phrase and having trouble finding the right search terms. In the last couple of weeks I have been learning AS 3.0 and the fantastic Classes that are cool as heck (not a programmer... well sort of). Everything has been working great and I've grasped the concepts well, but because of my lack of experience I am not sure of the "best" way to do some things. For example where (which "as file" to create an array of characters?)

This is a very simple game:
25 "characters" (character class in Character.as)
All characters have the exact same properties with different values:
charName:int
life:int
strength:int
movement:int
type:String
char_mc:MovieClip (or sprite.. probably mc)

There are 2 types of characters; shipCrew and aliens. The differences between the two is that shipCrew can use various weapons and have unique "names". Aliens don't have names, just a type and they can grow and/or multiply. All of the interaction and basic game play I can handle no problem once I figure out "where" to create my characters and classes and or subclasses. My initial "training experiments" worked well... until I started reading up on "best practices" in coding and realized I had it kind of all mixed up and backwards. My concern is "doing it wrong at the start".

My first stab at this was to create the array of ALL characters in the "main.as" class for the document, then looping the array, creating new character instances on the stage. Since each character has different properties I just created the same array properties for each with a different value. So basically I am "hard coding" all the characters up front "by hand" so to speak with all the properties in the array. Since they were all identical basically, looping the array to "do stuff" was straight forward... for now. The array looks horrible in the code and is hard to "read" but since it's all "static" anyway it doesn't seem to matter... but would still like to "do it right".

Game play is simple because at a basic level each character regardless of what type it is will do the same thing. I would expand on the differences later. However as part of this inquiry I will need class instances on the stage to communicate with each other (like the idea of a registry for this). So my questions are:
Should I create individual as class files for all 25 characters? (icky?)
Or use an array to store the character class objects? A dictionary? A vector?

They all worked, I tried them all. I like arrays better because easier to deal with, but dictionaries look like fun and might be more efficient (only 25 items, how bad could it be?) storing in an object works too. Whatever type of "array thingy" I choose, Which class file do I create the array in? In the "main" document class or the character class itself? In another type of file like an "init" file? Could I create a "custom" file "type" or class... thingy like "CharacterCreator.as"? How about using a registry?