SEE,
Virtually all the guys will tell you that 400-500m is way to much. Many of us use 200m, some 150, some 250. Those videos are really useful and well worth taking in but there's nothing like putting it into practice.
For online play try joining a Squad. They will help you out, train you and give you that all important cameraderie.
You can find Squads on the Ubisoft IL-2 forums (I don't think there's one here on 1C-Maddox but have a look). I haven't posted there for quite a while as we have a fairly strong squad already but we now have a few places available so you could visit our website if it interests you but I don't want to turn this into a Recruitment thread. For other Squads look at that Ubisoft IL-2 forum.
Our website is at
http://firebirds.2ndtaf.org.uk/