I bought RC Simulator from Tower Hobbies for $10 ( think they want $14 for it now). You need a gamepad with two joysticks on it for any kind of realism, and at that, you use the 'slider' for throttle control. But if you the gamepad already, it will at least teach you how to move the sticks to make the plane fly where you want it.

I was able to take my Slow Stick out first time and, after some ground runs, get it up and down easily.

I've read here that some do not want to use the same transmitter that they fly with that they use for the game. As the planes on a sim don't fly the same as in real life, they didn't want their thumbs to learn the right way to do it and then have to rethink thumb-feel when they got to the field.