Welcome to our family Russellb! I can say from personal experience that simulator time was crucial to my successful first maiden flights. You will have to have a transmitter to fly one. The sim time builds muscle memory and you'll find you recover from most noob mistakes without even thinking about it. Your thumbs just kind of do it. That's my personal experience, anyway.
I am also 50 and the fact you want to fly with your son is awesome! Anytime we can connect with our family on a shared interest is great. The youngin's move on before we know it.
As for the sim, I've got a link in this thread. I am not endorsing anybody and you don't have to buy it from there. That's just where I got mine.
https://forum.flitetest.com/index.php?threads/phoenix-rc-and-ft-models.56476/
There are past and present members of this forum who have managed to get most of FliteTest's planes modeled and into that $14 dollar simulator. I've only Real Life experience with the Tiny Trainer, but I've found that the simulated version flys a lot like the actual.
There's my next point. I would suggest the Tiny Trainer as your first plane. I am biased, since it is not only the first, but the only plane I've flown. However, I did successfully fly it my first time out, thanks to how it is designed and the practice time on the simulator. That is exceptionally rare for a first ever maiden flight.
Regardless, I want to say welcome and I am glad you and your son are here!