resolve_aircraft_type

Which aircraft type does this designator or marketing name refer to?

Accepts an ICAO type designator (A21N) or a marketing name people actually
say ("A321neo", "Dash 8-400", "777-300ER", "Q400"). Returns the ICAO
designator, manufacturer, model, engine count and type, aircraft class, and
the ICAO wake turbulence category.

A name that identifies a family rather than a variant -- "Dreamliner",
"777X", "A330neo" -- returns ambiguous with the variants as alternates
and a confidence in the 0.4-0.69 band. That is the correct answer to an
imprecise question; do not collapse it to the first alternate.

wtc (wake turbulence category) is stated for almost every type, from FAA
Order JO 7360.1K, and is cited like any other field. Where it is null the
document leaves it blank -- do NOT fill it in from your own knowledge if the
caller needs it for separation or charging, say it is unavailable.

IATA aircraft type codes are NOT held -- the three-character form used in
schedules and booking systems, "77W" or "32N". IATA's list is licensed and
is not reproduced here, so those return unresolved with a note saying so.
If you are working from schedule data, convert to the ICAO designator
before calling (B77W, A20N); if you cannot, report the mapping as
unavailable rather than guessing it.

capacity, where present, carries what a network or fleet planner needs
from the TYPE: seats_max_certified (the type certificate's maximum),
seats_typical (the band the manufacturer publishes, with the cabin
configuration it assumes), range_nm (maximum range at typical payload,
a band where variants share a designator) and mtow_kg. Every value was
read from a type certificate data sheet or the manufacturer's own page and
confirmed by a second check; each is cited. The exact seat count of any
airframe is the operator's configuration and is NOT held -- do not present
the typical band as a particular aircraft's layout. For US markets,
frequency, seats flown and load factor by route and type ARE held -- use
route_capacity and airport_fleet_mix (BTS T-100, about three months in
arrears). Yield is not held anywhere: supply it to build a revenue model.
capacity is null where no confirmed record exists yet, and a
null field inside it means the value was researched but not confirmed, and
the notes say so.

Do NOT use this to determine what type operated a particular flight; use
resolve_registration for a specific airframe.

Reading confidence: 1.0 means an exact unique match on an unambiguous identifier for the as_of date. 0.7-0.99 means a unique match reached through normalisation, an alias or a historical record. 0.4-0.69 means the best of several plausible candidates and alternates is populated -- prefer asking the user over picking one. Below 0.4 is speculative: do not act on it.

status is resolved, ambiguous or unresolved. An unresolved answer is a real result, not an error: it means this dataset cannot identify the thing, and inventing one would be worse. Every field in best has a citation in provenance. When the thing exists and this dataset could not identify it, report_unmet_need with gap_kind unresolved is how that gap gets prioritised -- report it, then tell the user you could not find it.