Finally trying to get back into IL2 1946 after a layoff of several years and patching to 4.09 found out what a noob I've become!
So' 2 questions.
1.tried opening the gun/bombsight on the Val with no sucess ,tried shift/F1 toggle gunsight and toggle gun/bombsight user defined.with no sucess...
Also user defined was the air brakes which extended o.k but how do you retract them?
Guess I'm heading back to flight school haaa!

The gunsight on the D3A1 Val is toggled open/closed with 'Tinted Recticle Dimmer': Ctrl-D by default. This applies to all 'telescope' style gunsights.

The airbrakes are also are an on/off toggle: mine are set to Alt-D, I'm not sure if that is the default.

Welcome back.

After you open the sight with Ctrl-D like Andy suggested, don't forget to look through it via Shift-F1.

The airbrakes are retracted with the same key you used to deploy them.