Each year English Heritage undertake a programme of aerial reconnaissance covering the whole of England. The reconnaissance is undertaken by two Aerial Survey teams based in the Swindon and York offices. The York office staff cover the northern counties (Cumbria, Northumberland, Durham, Tyne and Wear, Cleveland, North Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Lancashire, Merseyside, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire). . For the financial year 2003/4 the northern reconaissance programme made 32 flights (a total of 91.6 flight hours) and photographed 686 targets. Further details are given below: In the first quarter of the year (01/04/03 to 30/06/03) one flight, in April, targeted recording local towns as part of the Yorkshire Region¿s urban regeneration project, an another flight was undertaken to get views of the causeways in the Witham Valley project area. Large-scale excavations at York, Ferrybridge and Besthorpe were also photographed. In May only two flights were undertaken, one to get photographs of specific views on Hadrian's Wall needed for the new souvenir brochure, and one to photograph the now fully excavated Huntington South Moor Roman Camp, discovered by Aerial Survey last year. June saw a good start to the summer monitoring the start of the cropmark season in the northern England which looks reasonably promising on well-drained soils. Additionally further photography of Lincoln (including the current excavations) and the Witham valley was undertaken, mining affected landscapes in Derbyshire were photographed, and a significant start was made to recording of SAMs at Risk in Lincolnshire. In the second quarter (01/07/03 to 30/09/03) flying conditions in July were generally good but the cropmark response in most areas was poor. Despite this many new sites were discovered, perhaps the most interesting being a large concentric enclosure near the West Yorkshire South Yorkshire border. During cropmark recce in Lincolnshire 98% of the sites requested for the Sams at Risk project were photographed. Other photography was undertaken for the Witham Valley project and England's Landscapes books. The POW camp at Moorby, Lincs was photographed as an urgent request prior to its demolition. Peter Horne flew over to Hawarden to conduct a training flight with staff of Merseyside Museum service. In August and September cropmarks remained sparse and the hot spell only produced limited results in grassland. Sugar beet on sands and gravels revealed new sites in the Vale of York NMP area. Photography on the Yorkshire Moors and Wolds was undertaken for the Regional Landscapes books. In the third quarter (01/10/03 to 31/12/03) three flights in October concentrated on illustrations for the England Landscapes books areas looked at included North Yorkshire, Teesside and Durham. One flight also was targeted to record extensive burning on the North York Moors near Fylingdales. In December one flight in good snow conditions in Yorkshire undertook new photography for the Helmsley beacon project and a variety of other targets, but had to be aborted prematurely due to mechanical problems.In the fourth quarter (01/10/04 to 31/03/04) only one flight was undertaken. Weather was as always, a factor, but pilot availability was the main problem encountered.