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This SAE Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP) specifies guidelines for calculating and performing shoring (load spreading) required on board civil transport aircraft whenever a piece of cargo to be carried exceeds the aircraft's maximum allowable limits in area load, running load, or both. It provides both the engineering methods needed to properly design a shoring arrangement, and the main practical dos and donts known from experience to ensure its effectiveness in protecting the aircraft's structure against overload.

This document aims at providing recognized industry standard methods to achieve the best attainable level of aircraft structural protection when designing and performing a shoring arrangement, taking into account the general requirements expressed in the aircraft manufacturers Weight and Balance Manuals, the requirements to be met as a result of the air cargo pallets airworthiness certification requisites, as well as the various potential areas of concern identified based on experience.

This document, therefore, provides recommended practical means of compliance with flight safety objectives, intended to be available as a common base for carriers as well as their airport handling agents when establishing their own in-house procedures, publications and staff training programs.

This document, however, is primarily intended for use by qualified structural engineers to be responsible for calculating and implementing cargo shoring arrangements where the size and weight of the piece of cargo require. It is not intended as a guide for more common simpler shoring requirements, identified thereafter: ARP5486, Air Cargo Pallets - Utilization Guidelines, Section 5 addresses such relatively simple cases.

This document shall not, under any circumstance, supersede the requirements of applicable airworthiness regulations (see FAR Part 25) or the aircraft manufacturer's Weight and Balance Manual.

In addition, any aircraft manufacturers specific cargo shoring instructions shall be strictly complied with. Since in several instances they contain proprietary data, such data should be used only by authorized companies and persons with proper understanding thereof.