Unless I'm missing something, the new Ikonos imagery for Google Earth
doesn't cover much.

It looks like a rectangular block of new imagery that is roughly 50
miles tall by 30 miles wide (with an additional 15 mile x 15 mile
block adjacent to the bottom of its SW corner). The Flying M Ranch is
centered on its eastern edge and about 4 miles west of said eastern
edge, so almost all of the new imagery is west of the Flying M's
longitude.

I thought the search area was in a 100-mile radius centered on the
Flying M Ranch runway?

At any rate, the kind of flat areas Fossett wanted to scout appear to
be found *east* of the Flying M, for the most part.