Why was contrail forecasting important to the Air Force in the 1950s but not in the 1980s?
It was and still is important. The reason has always been because of stealth – a plane might dodge the radar, but if it leaves a long contrail then it’s hard to hide. Perhaps in the 1950s there was more of a focus on spy planes, and now they have either been largely replaced by satellites, or they have figured out how to avoid contrail producing regions of the atmosphere.
