For the second straight year the National Aeronautic Association has bestowed the prestigious Robert J. Collier Trophy on an unmanned program, leading to serious questions about whether the prize committee still views traditional aeronautic endeavors with the same high esteem as when aircraft and real pilots routinely claimed the award.
The 2013 Collier Trophy recipient is U.S. Navy’s X-47B UAV, an aircraft that the NAA notes is the “first unmanned, autonomous air system operating from an aircraft carrier.” It marks the second time a UAV has won the coveted prize after Northrup Grumman’s Global Hawk was named the Collier recipient in 2000, and the second year in a row that a pilotless program won after the Mars Curiosity Rover took the prize last year.
