I think there was a similar thread years ago but it’s perhaps time to reassess…
Throughout the reboot’s history (i.e. since 2020) there have been some countries with disproportionate third-party developer representation (re airports); yet curiously there remain surprising but obvious omissions. One such case was Malaga, Spain, which had gone 3 years without sim representation — despite almost every other major airport in the country having been recreated. Similarly, Frankfurt, Germany, only got its first good third-party option within the last 12 months (and Dusseldorf only in the last 6!).
The obvious one in 2025 is Paris CDG, which remains without a decent payware option. Of course this will soon be a moot point, since two devs are on the case, but there are several other current examples. It really surprises me how devs will go for small, obscure airports while seemingly ignoring some of the more significant examples. Maybe the more obvious choices are more risky since many devs don’t communicate with one another?
Two other examples are Stavanger and Bodo, in Norway. We have every outlying fjord airport Wideroe fly to but not the country’s 4th and 7th busiest respectively (although M’M are doing Stavanger).
Cambodia-we have the old Phnom Penh International Airport VDPP by MFSG which isn’t even good quality at all and no other dev brought a good VDPP but not the new Techo International Airport VDTI yet by any dev which has replaced VDPP.
Mexico-Macco did MMUN but abandoned further updates and no other good MMUN is available, more up to date.
Oh, I can think of quite a few. I’ll also list those for which third-party scenery is available, but which are undoubtedly poor and do not meet today’s standards.
Addis Ababa
Accra
Lagos
Jakarta
Orlando
Panama City
Perth
New Delhi
Hanoi
Ho Chi Minh City
Bucharest
Kathmandu
Rangoon
Brunei
Mexico City
Tunis
Casablanca
FADS are doing a 2024-native Kathmandu. If it’s anything like their previous releases, it’ll be pretty decent. Perth is also on the to-do list (Impulse) but I don’t think it’ll be any time soon.
Rhodes and Crete in Greece have gone a long time without decent or up-to-date versions but SimPixel are on the case with Heraklion. Sofia could also do with a decent remake as the two we have are poor. Agree re Bucharest, too.
Not big ones but I’m surprised no one’s done Dresden, Germany or Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Across the Pond, Atlanta was always an obvious one and kudos to Orbx/Matteo Veneziani for finally attempting it. Steering clear of the massive hubs I can understand more as it must be a nightmare trying to balance detail with performance. It took an age to get a reasonable KDFW (and the price no doubt reflects the enormous amount of work that goes into the bigger airports). I’d like to see better renditions of KORD, KBWI, KFLL, KPIT, KCVG and KCLT, and a third-party KMCO would be nice. Still plenty of smaller airports in the States to go at!
I like Imaginesim’s DFW but the lack of even simple interiors-parallax effect even is a bummer for me something iniBuilds, etc do very nicely and configurable on/off.
Re: YPPH being done by Impulse - hope they don’t get beaten to the punch again, after MK recently released YPAD (out of the blue). Perth is apparently also being worked on by Orbx… Impulse’s should eventually be paired with their Perth landmarks, which has been advertised on their site at $A22 or something for ages but is not actually available yet, as far as I can see. YPPH is the closest airport to where I live, and I’m making do with the Axonos version, which is servicable. Really was hoping that Impulse, NZA or Auscenes would maybe give us Jandakot though!
As good as they are, the Aussie devs seem to have a habit of promising more than they can deliver, with Impulse and AUScene between them advertising Perth (+ city), Newcastle, Townsville, Hervey Bay, Darwin and an Adelaide reboot. That’s five years’ worth there!
As for Orbx, two years ago they were “imminently” releasing KDFW to accompany their Detroit city pack…
Mexico-we have MMMX, etc but aren’t up to iniBuilds level of quality-would not recommend Flymex MMMX scenery either, is super low quality/detail and not worth the price tbh. Freeware options at flightsim.to are similar. and MMTJ Tijuana and MMGL Guadalajara lack of updates by Magsoft which did these ones previously and I enjoyed but Magsoft apparently hasn’t bothered with further updates like functional jetways.
I don’t want to sound negative or over critical but does anyone knows of an airport without any issues?
Specifically, one without taxi lights and nav aids all over the place, buildings missing or totally wrong depiction, severe dips and bumps, taxiways / runways not reflecting the real world (charts/supplements), and so on..? I haven’t been to one.
It would be very nice to track the progress on the repair of the airports in the “Development Updates”. I am talking about the non-Marketplace airports of course.
Lots of U.S. airports, big and small by various devs of varying quality but then there are some smaller, lesser ones are those ugly, awful MSFSSceneryBuilders FSX quality ports ones to avoid on the Marketplace,etc and then there’s good ones like FB,Pacsim, FlyTampa, ini, etc and then ones like KCVG from Skyline Simulations but they abandoned further updates on their rendition.
We have KSAN by LVFR and Glidescope Pro, KMIA by LVFR and Glidescope Pro, KMCO-Taxi2Gate did one but no updates recently, and KBWI by LVFR but none are up to ini level of quality.
Product page for YPPH is now up on Orbx Direct, no price yet.
Actually looks OK from the screenshots, even if not super amazing. Certainly better than YMML. The interiors are pretty close to what I remember at my home airport (have not been on a real-life plane in something like three years).
I do wonder if Impulse will continue with their YPPH. The Orbx announcement was around a year ago and Impulse have kept it as a future release on their website, so they don’t seem deterred. Impulse’s Perth city was in beta a couple of months back but given the lead dev’s recent circumstances, any delay is understandable.
I really wish someone would do Darwin, Newcastle and (a better) Cairns.
