Early films treated the cockpit as a gentleman’s club in the sky. In Airport (1970) and Airplane! (1980), the cockpit is filled with wisecracking, middle-aged men. The "cute" element was the juxtaposition of life-or-death stakes with mundane problems (e.g., the autopilot being an inflatable auto-pilot doll). This was the proto-"Cockpit Cutie"—not yet Instagrammable, but certainly charming.
