Michael, thanks for the reply.
Alright starting with sim_vehicle.py as baseline from the ardupilot dev container I was able to connect Mission Planner, so the problem must be on the ardupilot or simulator side.
Tools/autotest$ python sim_vehicle.py -v ArduCopter -w --console
But then I ran into the ‘Done’ dialog issue reported here, but that’s a different matter 