i got it working late last night, its amazing what you can get done in the early hours haha
heres the code if anyone was interested, just make sure you have the link to the images right.
this code goes after the pilot lastname in frontpage_recentpilots.tpl in the templates folder
<img src="../../lib/images/countries/<?php echo $pilot->location?>.png">
its my first forray into php systems and i must admit its mind boggling some of the stuff but im slowly learning how to understand how it all works
what i have to do now is rename the flags to match up with the location on registration, so instead of example ca.png it will have to be Canada.png.
www.hawaiianva.org is the site, a heavy skinning of the system but getting there!
Thanks Nabeel, once ive finished and everything running smoothly il donate something