It’s amazing to think that biplanes were still quite prevalent at the end of the 1930’s – essentially Great War technology, and yet before the end of the Second war, we had jets most of the way to Mach 1, Ballistic missiles and the A-Bomb – a mere five years or so. There is no doubt that the Americans were ahead of the game in terms of Civil Aviation in the 1930’s, which I think was driven to a great extent by the sheer distances, greater space for runways and a greater prevalence of paved surfaces in the U.S. In the U.K, with much shorter routes, less land and almost no paved runways, (Not to mention worse weather..!) there simply wasn’t the impetus, with the exception of some of the Imperial Airways routes. The UK had the larger Commercial monoplanes just about appearing before the war broke-out.
In any case, the Americans had large stressed-skin monocoque aircraft, with retracts, VP airscrews and flaps. They were not just for show either, they were in regular service years before the war. It’s a little arbitrary, but I tend to think of 1930 as being a watershed. In the 1920’s, most a/c were still essentially ‘First Generation’. At the start of the 1930’s, all these older norms started to be phased-out. This is why for me, the 1930’s ‘Second Generation’ developments are so fascinating, as they were the first ‘modern’ aircraft.
The other facet of the 1930’s is the flying itself. This moved-on from very basic piloting skills to the use of early R/T, RNav and the genesis of RADAR etc. All the big records were set and the pioneering flights made, so that, by the outbreak of the war, all the records had been set and the airways were open for business.
Of course, quite a few of these pioneers and record setters met sticky, or at least tragic ends. Some, like Black, were killed flying in the 1930’s, Mollison and Scott took to the bottle, Johnson was killed in a silly accident during the war, to name but a few.
By the end of the war, young aircrew, with relatively little experience – but much better training – were routinely carrying out long-distance, long endurance flights that, only a scant few years earlier, would have made them national heroes. Such things are perhaps a real measure of progress.
To that extent, AE doubtless found greater fame in her demise than she would ever have otherwise had. I’m quite baffled however, as to why the likes of TIGHAR are so obsessed. All the fact are available and she is well documented and her fame firmly marked. We know, give or take a bit where she ditched, and as the search for MH370 in the Indian Ocean has recently illustrated, such vast expanses can easily swallow the largest of a/c – without trace. So, no mystery at all really in AE’s case.
What is clear though, is that she was a good pilot – and consistently so. Sadly, on that fateful leg of her flight, she made a bad call in leaving some of the radios behind. Noonan seems to have been an excellent navigator, but to expect to find a tiny island – in all the vastness of the Pacific, primarily by DR and luck……… Yep, a bad and fatal call.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY8EuvWnDMw