Guys PLEEEZ help here: I've flown DAYS of attempts to try and find the "Friend", but can only find and rescue the Yacht Captain. I've grid searched the whole Tasman Sea until the co-pilot tells me we've left the search area and must start again at Piha!VERY frustrating now. Normally I like to find my own way out of a tight spot. Please tell me where this "Friend" is.

OK, here's a hint:He's closer than you think. He's very hard to see if you are too high.Basically, If I remember correctly, he's within a 1 mile radius of the captain, so don't search out too far.Good luck, captain!Kevin D. Greenehttp://fsxmissions.blogspot.com/

I'm having the same problem. Anything from 20' ASL to 1000' ASL, using circular searches, line searches and block searches from the yacht, no missing man. It's actually getting very irritating now. :-(I actually cheated and found the co-ordinates for him, put the helo right on top of them at 100 feet and he still wasn't there.Something odd is definately going on!Ian P.

Bad habit to reply to yourself, but I found him on about the sixth go. I flew 1 minute south of the yacht, one minute west, then rather than turning north, I put the nose directly back at the yacht to fly a diagonal track back north-east. About twenty seconds into the leg, the other guy appeared.When regular search patterns don't work, invent your own. Why not? ;-)Hope that helps someone else...Cheers,Ian P.

Sorry fellas, but Microsoft did this one correctly.You are forgetting one small factor: THE WIND.Smaller objects adrift from another, larger object, will drift downwind of that larger object creating a "debris field" in the water.The USCG uses this tactic to find victims from a capsized or sunken vessel in high seas: the victims and others will drift with the wind away from the sunken vessel...They and people like me (who know the GPS coordinates of the sunken/sinking vessel) will search downwind of the last-know location for victims, etc.After I found the Yacht, I floated downwind about 1/10 of a mile and BINGO, there was the victim. Got him on my first try.Since I do this for a living, I did all of the "wilderness/search and rescue" stuff first in the Missions. Kinda fun too.Good luck!

Of course, what the mission says is that he drifed West, not south-west and on my first attempt, I hovered *directly on top of the location where he is at 200'* and the copilot "couldn't see him". Yes, when I did eventually find him, I checked the location and it was the same as I already had written down after failing to "find" him umpteen times.Not quite as straight forward as you might like to think...I'd hope that looking a) in the direction you ae told to go and :( in the direction the wind would push something is obvious, not a mystery to be discovered. ;-)Ian P.

I stayed about 50 ft above the water the whole time. I just floated downwind and it worked. 200 ft was probably just too high, that's all.There are plenty of errors in these missions, including "directions" given by the "co-pilots".Sometimes applying logic works, sometimes it doesn't.I'm glad you found the drifting friend in the water.I failed the Idaho Search and Rescue mission several times by not flying low enough after the CP says he saw a fire "to the west". Actually it was "northwest". Have fun.

The CAP mission I would have completed first time, had I not been looking the wrong way and taxied into a shrub turning round after picking up the injured pilot. Entirely my own fault, that one! :-hahI've been back and tried the Foul Weather Rescue mission again and, again, no friend in the water, flying exactly the same pattern that I did last time (and found him then), which is why I am still suspicious of that one. Now I have the hover gauge in the Alphasim Osprey, I might try it in that and see what happens.These missions are definately better (and more addictive) than I thought they would be.Cheers,Ian P.

I ran the CAP mission for fun in the Ultra-Light Trike.Where the downed pilot with the broken leg and the CP sat in the back is beyond me. Guess the Trike can carry more weight then expected. Hah, Hah.Later.

Heck I've tried to find the friend twice while running out of gas. That's a lot of flying for that mission. I still haven't found him...