The invention relates to a rapid airplane template design system and method for improving the design efficiency of an airplane template, and belonging to the field of a rapid digitized design technology of aircraft tooling. The rapid airplane template design system is established on an existing CAD/CAM system platform and is composed of a template design knowledge base module, a large-scale structural component exterior template design module, a rapid sheet metal shape and flat template design module and a rapid template adding design module; the rapid airplane template design method comprises the following procedures: (1) designing a large-scale structural component outline detection template; (2) rapidly designing the sheet metal shape and the flat template; and (3) performing a rapid template adding design. According to the rapid airplane template design system and method, the template design knowledge and the template design experience are summarized and neatened on the basis of the digital model of a part, a standard design criterion is established, the interactive design is converted into the rapid design, the template design time can be reduced by 75% and the design labor intensity can be reduced by 90%.