ORIGINAL: jester_s1

There is a sticky thread at the top of this forum with the title "trainers- what's available." That will tell you everything you could possibly want to know. Option 2 is I could just tell you what to get and you'll do fine with it.

Hobbico Avistar plane- good in wind, slow when you need it to be, very forgiving. It's an ARF, which means you'll spend less money than you would on a kit and not have to spend the next 3 months building it.
Thunder Tigre .46 PRO engine- Good power, reliable, easy to break in and tune, and inexpensive
4 Hitec HS-425 servos- durable and inexpensive
A transmitter and receiver- Take your pick between Spektrum DX6i, Hitec Optic 6, Futaba 6XAS, or Airtronics RDS8000. Each have slightly different features but all are quality makes and fairly close to each other in price. For training and sport flying up to learning aerobatics, it will not matter the tiniest bit which one you choose.
A quality NiCd receiver battery 700-1100 mah or so. www.hangtimes.com has the best prices on the top quality batteries.
Field equipment: Electric starter, 12v battery and charger for it (I like using a NiCd pack but a sealed lead acid will do fine), glow driver with charger, hand crank fuel pump, glow plug wrench, and fuel. An assortment of hand tools for the various fasteners on your plane is also a good idea, along with spare screws and such. You'll also need something to put it all in. Some buy a purpose built field box, while others use a tackle box or tool box.

Now sure, 40 different people will show up and have 40 little tweaks they want to do to this list, but the fact is if you buy this list of stuff you will have a reliably performing set of equipment and will have no trouble getting started in the hobby with it.