ACC 2026 · 5°/34
Twin-engine, V-tail, retractable landing gear. Carbon-fibre structure. At ACC 2026 in Stuttgart: 5th of 34 teams.
wingspan2,70 m
top speed122 km/h
take-off mass6,35 kg
Drone team · University of Padua · since 2017
Research, collaborate, compete and fly
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Our aircraft · ACC 2026
This is
Midnight
Twin-engine, V-tail, retractable landing gear. A carbon-fibre structure, designed and built by us.
Who we are
We are a team of students from the University of Padua who design, build and fly fixed-wing drones for competitions.
Every two years we take a new aircraft to the Air Cargo Challenge, the European aeronautical engineering competition for university students.
We build in the lab and test at the flying field, and along the way we learn to work as a team and to meet deadlines and project requirements.
2017
Founded
5°/34
Best ACC finish
60+
Students in the team
4
Race drones built
About us
Find out who we are and how we work. If you have questions, just get in touch.
The team→
What we do
We give students the chance to put what they study into practice and, above all, to develop skills that matter in the working world.
Our activities→
Join LiftUP
Join us: turn your ideas into real projects and find out first-hand what it means to be part of this team.
Applications open until 18 October→
Air Cargo Challenge 2026 · Stuttgart
The best result in our history
In late June we took Midnight to Stuttgart, among 34 international university teams. The winner flies the most payload with the most efficient aircraft: we finished 5th of 34.
The fleet
From 2019
to today
Full spec sheet →
ACC 2024 · 10°/30
V-tail and an innovative landing gear with airless wheels in glass and carbon fibre. Fully dismountable and easy to transport.
empty weight3 kg
max payload3,06 kg
tailV-tail
ACC 2022 · 6°/30
Inverted V-tail, pusher propeller, winglets and a large front cargo bay. Entirely in carbon fibre.
max payload2,3 kg
LiPo 4000 mAh3S
of 30 teams6°
ACC 2019 · 8°
Our first race drone: V-tail, tail-dragger landing gear, composite fuselage and a carbon-reinforced wooden wing.
max payload6 kg
to load it13,3 s
first race8°
Prototype
The prototype where it all began: modular and adjustable, built to study the layouts later used on Marcoplano. Named after the Paduan mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita.
year2019
layoutModular
prototypeFirst
What we do
From drawing board
to flying field
01
Design
Every drone starts with a design process covering all of the aircraft’s systems, from aerodynamics to structures, to maximise race performance.
02
Manufacturing
Our drones come to life in the lab of the Department of Industrial Engineering: balsa, wood and carbon- and glass-fibre parts.
03
Flight testing
At equipped flying fields we measure our aircraft’s performance. The data helps us improve today’s drone and design tomorrow’s.
04
Research
We built our own tensile-testing machine for composite specimens and a test stand to measure motor and propeller performance.
Watch
us fly
Recruiting 2026/27 · applications open until 18 October
Join
LiftUP
We are looking for new people in five departments. No experience needed: just the will to learn.
Midnight’s sponsors and partners
Who supports us
Main partner
Composites since 1986
Since Kowalsky, all the carbon parts of our aircraft have been laminated with Compositex.
Technical partners
Sponsors
Supported by