Jbeam movement control modifiers

I've a vehicle (X18 Fighter) that has the throttle control mapped to the keyboard. I can work the wing surfaces with default controller settings easily enough - but in one of the vehicle jbeam files, there is a line (simplified here):

"thrusters": [
{"control": "T"},

Now I know it's probably a workaround of the intended movement programming - but I'm wondering if I can redirect that input identifier to something that might be more similar to what's found in inputmap.cs

For example: %mm.bind(%device, triggerr, "D", $gp_deadzone, accelerate);

or perhaps a component of that - instead of simply "T" - in order to have full use of the controller and bypass the keyboard.