Aircraft parts have the characteristics of large size and complex structure. The traditional single measurement method, such as laser tracker, is more and more difficult to meet the needs of high precision and high efficiency measurement of aircraft intelligent manufacturing due to the low efficiency of measurement. As a new combined measurement method, the flexible measurement technology of large-scale measurement has broken through the problem of low measurement efficiency of single measurement equipment. With its advantages of high precision and high efficiency measurement, it has shown a strong development and application prospect in the field of aviation measurement. Aiming at the research of automatic flexible large-scale measurement technology in the aircraft manufacturing process, this paper first summarizes the relevant progress of aircraft measurement field construction. Secondly, the research progress of flexible automatic scanning path planning is introduced. Then, the application status of flexible measurement in the measurement of aircraft skin clearance, overall level measurement and digital preassembly are listed. Finally, the research of aircraft automatic flexible large-scale measurement technology is of great practical significance to improve the quality control of aircraft manufacturing process.