Look at the payware airport releases of any given month and a pattern is hard to miss. Europe and North America get the bulk of them, with a steady rotation of German regionals, British secondaries and American hubs. A major Asian hub outside the usual Tokyo and Singapore rotation is a rarer thing, and India in particular has been thin on the ground.
There are perhaps only a handful of Indian airport renditions for MSFS worth owning, mostly TaiModels’ Bengaluru and SkyMatrix’s Jaipur, for a country with 36 international airports and one of the fastest growing aviation markets anywhere. So a detailed VIDP is a small event in itself. DhruvSim‘s rendition of Indira Gandhi International went on sale this week, covering both MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024.
The airport that kept slipping
VIDP has seen a few attempts over the years, and DhruvSim said from the start that the aim was a version built to modern MSFS standards with long-term support behind it. That ambition is also what stretched the timeline. The project was first shown on the official forums in January with a target of roughly one month. It moved to March, then late March, then June, and in early July the developer asked for the thread to be closed and unlisted entirely. Someone opened a separate topic shortly afterwards asking whether the whole thing had been cancelled.
It’s a familiar pattern for a first-time payware developer, and to DhruvSim’s credit the delays were explained rather than ignored. Responding to a user who called the project abandonware, the developer said the extra time went into raising quality rather than rushing, and that a handful of remaining items would land in post-release updates instead of holding the launch back further. Worth knowing before you buy: version 1.0 is explicitly not everything that was planned.
The thread is also a good record of a scenery being steered by its future customers. Forum regulars pushed for custom jetways over default models, sharper ground clutter, correct PAPI and frequency data, and a taxiway network that behaves properly with AI traffic and tools like BeyondATC. The developer agreed to each point and brought in an outside contributor to help with jetway animation. In March he also said he was working with an experienced GSX profile creator so a profile would be ready at launch, though the simMarket listing doesn’t mention one, so treat that as unconfirmed for now.
What the scenery covers
DhruvSim says the package includes accurate terminal models with PBR materials on buildings and ground, interiors for the terminals, an up to date airport layout, animated buses and airside vehicles, static aircraft across the field, and custom night lighting based on real references. The developer also says LODs and instancing were used to keep performance reasonable across a range of systems.
The detail that stands out is what sits outside the fence. DhruvSim says Aerocity and parts of Dwarka have been modeled, which is what you look down on during an approach to Delhi’s parallel runways. Landside areas are included too, so the terminal frontage doesn’t fall away into default terrain.
Delhi is about to get busier
Until now the options were thin. FeelThere’s VIDP has been the main payware rendition since 2023, sold for MSFS 2020. Cascadia Approach’s version sits at $9.99 and MSFS 2024 support still listed as under investigation. Neither reflects the airport’s current layout.
That changes twice over. In April, ImagineSim confirmed it’s building its own VIDP for MSFS and shared a preview of Terminal 1. The studio has been making Delhi since the FSX and P3D days, so it arrives with real history at this specific airport. No release window has been given, but DhruvSim’s product now has a competitor in development.
Price makes the comparison sharper. At €20.95, VIDP sits alongside TaiModels’ Kempegowda, a scenery that is seen by many as the standard for Indian airports. It’s a confident place for a debut payware release to position itself, and it’s the benchmark this one will be measured against.
