OK
UPDATE
I did not realise in Win 7 that there are two sets of cofuser.ini files, one in the the Steam folder where the CoD game is filed, and one in the Documents>1c SoftClub>Il-2 Sturmovik Cliffs of Dover section.
I have no idea why there are two sets of .ini files(on my system anyway)
Anyway....I copied the Documents/1C SoftClub/Il2 conf.ini into the Steam/Steamapps/Common/Il2 folder......and now all my axes work, the buttons don't (yet)
Going to fiddle about more