Well I was not flying in the '30s, but in 1962 on squadron we still had to do a range approach under the hood from the back seat of the T-33 for our annual ticket ride. It was probably the only one done in the year and you can imagine most of them were not pretty. We were not allowed to put the receiver on to ADF to get an idea of closing on the leg. After a while reality prevailed and the range approach became seen as a bit unrealistic given that the receiver was also an ADF.
Once we got the CF-100 replaced with the CF-101B, (TACAN equipped), the range approach was dropped and not missed by anyone.