On the "Civil Air Patrol Search" mission, I'm trying to find the crashed airplane or whatever when the copilot says "get in close so we can see better" after we spot a flare in the valley. howeve,r I've flown the area so many times and I still haven't found the guy.
Where is he?
You forgot to look under the rock by the fly with green wings

Sorry I could not help myself. I myself have not flown many missions in FSX. It might be that your settings are not set high enough to see the plane? That is one of the reasons I do not fly missions as they can lave out something important like the instruction that tells you to turn up your scenery density in order to see the aircraft. Make sure you read the briefing sometimes in haste we over look the obvious 8-)