Thanks for responding fellas, appreciate that. The issue isn’t simply assigning buttons and axes but assigning functions that default had on (let’s say) keyboard to the throttle/stick. The basic approach wouldn’t let me do that - and I’m not about to start using keyboard and mouse again when I have reasonable HOTAS kit.
I discovered the YouTube set up that you pointed me at, by reference to another older thread, just before I got your reply FrankyHut. They seem to be a good series so I have decided to watch them top to bottom. So thanks for the pointer, really useful.
With regard to my query, what I had determined to do was to delete all of the default settings for controls and start from scratch - see what happens. However, now I’ll watch the vids first 
Thanks again guys.