WarThunder - Earning Crew Skill Points

Earning crew experience points in WarThunder, this has been a pet peeve of mine with the title, as it really seems to be the biggest grind fest in the game, but the one most easily remedied with a cash injection... Now, I have subbed to WarThunder, I have spent money on Golden Eagles, but I've no disposable income, I just moved, I have to decorate, I have issues at work which means we need to keep as much money aside as possible, plus it's Christmas and so we've had to buy gifts for folks.  So Golden eagles are right down there on the priority list.

Now, crew skills are essential in Full Real Battles as I want to play, strangely the vision skills apply differently in FRB & Historical battles.  It seems a tad complex to me, but essentially you still see the enemy dot... right out to infinity, but it has no text/information written around it until the range of your view point perspective... Specifically they call this mechanic "Sighted", and I'm not sure whether the skill applies more importantly in FRB & HB than in Arcade, and arcade just has "Sighted" set to a fixed distance?

Anyway, getting crew skills...

I tried to get skill points in my other planes, I've followed tips by Krebs and others... But I can't play like them, I'm not that good... I mean recommendations like "Get 6-8 kills and then fly out your other planes" is pretty... well unrealistic, in a game where the average player gets between 3 and 5 kills per game, and ground kills still don't count for much - even if you're in a bomber - its so annoying.

For example, I flew out in my reserve and rank 1 Russian planes, got a win, 5 air kills from 3 planes (twice myself being shot down)... plus 9 ground kills... I got 1 crew skill point on one plane, and 2 skill points on the other.... Dismal, for a not bad result.

Next Japanese... I got one skill point on one crew, for a five plane fly out, 8 air kills, 3 ground kills (including a destroyer) in a match we lost... So loosing the match, despite getting a decent result... Indeed in the Japanese match I got Battle Trophies for being in the top 3 on my side, so an extra 1000xp... But no crew skill points.

I just wished I had some idea how/why they were applied/awarded, I might have to read the forums - and their inevitable speculation on the subject - but having a variety of crews only with 30-50 skill points is not cutting it above rank 5...

At least I have one well trained crew on the British - over 250 skill points - so they can access training/expert on the planes and I use them for FRB... but I really want other nations in my FRB, but I can't spare the cash!