🇲🇩 md-caa

Country	Moldova
Registration prefix	ER-
Data source	https://www.caa.md/modules/filemanager/files/documentum/Registrul_Aerian_al_Republicii_Moldova.pdf
Format	PDF (static URL, no header row)
Run frequency	Weekly (Tuesday, 14:10 UTC)
Depends on Mictronics for ICAO hex	Yes — the Moldova CAA register does not publish ICAO hex (Mode S) addresses; registrations are resolved via RediSearch against Mictronics records (idx:aircraft:mictronics). Must run after the mictronics runner.

How it works

The register PDF is downloaded from a static URL and parsed with pdfplumber.extract_table(), which works reliably here. The table has no header row, so columns are addressed by fixed 0-based position (Nr., Type of aircraft, Registration, Serial No., Operator) rather than by name. Rows whose registration column does not start with ER- are discarded during parsing. Type of aircraft and serial number are both whitespace-collapsed, since pdfplumber can represent a wrapped cell's text with an embedded newline rather than a space. Every written record explicitly sets military: false — this register is exclusively civil, and the explicit value ensures a stale military: true flag (from Mictronics or a prior record on a reused hex) is corrected on re-registration.

Columns

Source column	Imported	Notes
Nr. (position 0)	❌	Sequence number; parsed but not stored
Type of aircraft (position 1)	✅	Whitespace-collapsed → aircraft.model
Registration (position 2)	✅	ER-prefix filter; used as the Mictronics lookup key
Serial No. (position 3)	✅	Whitespace-collapsed → aircraft.serial_number
Operator (position 4)	❌	3-letter operator code only; parsed but not stored

See specs/data-dictionary.yaml (md-caa entry) for full column semantics and cross-source schema notes.

Example Output

Read back the merged record for a given ICAO hex (combines this runner's data with Mictronics and any other sources that have written to the same key):

docker run --rm --network host redis:latest redis-cli EVAL "$(cat ./shared/lua/merge_aircraft.lua)" 0 504E62 | python3 -m json.tool --sort-keys --no-ensure-ascii

{
    "aircraft": {
        "manufacturer": "CESSNA",
        "manufacturer_model": "CESSNA 172 Skyhawk",
        "model": "Cessna 172H",
        "serial_number": "345",
        "type_designator": "C172",
        "wake_turbulence_category": "Light"
    },
    "icao_hex": "504E62",
    "military": false,
    "registration": "ER-COA",
    "source": "md-caa"
}

docker run --rm --network host redis:latest redis-cli EVAL "$(cat ./shared/lua/merge_aircraft.lua)" 0 504E60 | python3 -m json.tool --sort-keys --no-ensure-ascii

{
    "aircraft": {
        "manufacturer": "BOEING",
        "manufacturer_model": "BOEING 747-200",
        "model": "Boeing 747-243F",
        "serial_number": "22545",
        "type_designator": "B742",
        "wake_turbulence_category": "Heavy"
    },
    "icao_hex": "504E60",
    "military": false,
    "registration": "ER-BAR",
    "source": "md-caa"
}

Configuration

Reads settings.json (mounted at /app/settings.json):

Parameter	Required	Default	Notes
redis.host	✅	—	Redis connection host
redis.port	❌	6379
mqtt.host	❌	—	Omit the whole mqtt block to skip completion-stats publishing entirely
mqtt.port	❌	1883
mqtt.username	❌	—	Optional MQTT auth; omit for an anonymous broker
mqtt.password	❌	—
redis_ttl_days	❌	14	TTL applied to each aircraft:registry:{icao_hex} key written by this runner

MQTT

Published once, at the end of a run, to SkyFollower/runner/md-caa/statistic/{name} (all retained):

Topic suffix	Value	Format
records_imported	e.g. 271	Integer as string
last_run_at	e.g. 2026-07-07T14:32:01.123456+00:00	ISO 8601 UTC
last_run_status	success or failure	String

Home Assistant autodiscovery configs are also published (retained) to homeassistant/sensor/SkyFollower_runner_md_caa_{name}/config for each of the three stats above.