Yeah, Recon missions would be good.
Perhaps adding Recce vesions ( P38/F5 comes immediately to mind ) and building a points system for bringing back photos.
Also, perhaps incorporating such 'intelligence' into the pop-up map.
I was thinking more in line of identifying enemy fleets and posting their position and heading so they appear on the clipboard. This information would change as new photos are landed. You could incorporate some time-frame for old pics to disappear, if they hadn't been updated in an hour or so.
So the mission would go something like this.
Select recce plane F5 from hangar ( no guns, so prepare to run!! )
Launch
Find enemy fleet
Turn Recce camera on ( probably needs to be separate from gun camera )
Return to base
Upload film
Voila' enemy fleet appears as a base on the clipboard map.
I guess if you really wanted to add some teeth to the value of recce, only update clipboard info after receiving such recce mission results. That way, you don't know if barracks or fuel have been disabled at an enemy base until a BDA ( Bomb Damage Assesment ) mission is completed.
Granted, that's probably taking the level of detail a little deep.. especially if somebody points out that it should, then, take a couple hours of film development time before the photo data was available.
Neat to consider, though.
<.S>