Once a upon a time in aviation, trainers were always two-seat aircraft that wedged instructor and student into near-intimate proximity. But things have changed and its not uncommon for student pilots to pony up over $300,000 for four-seat cruisers they plan to use for private and instrument training. Thats nice for the well-heeled; those of us who missed the last economic bubble but not the pop that followed need another plan. It can still make sense to purchase an aircraft you plan to train in. We looked at purchase and operation with an eye toward owning the machine for a while, or having a good chance at selling it for less than a catastrophic loss. To that end, weve simplified and eliminated taildraggers and some real rarities like the Ercoupe. don’t start whining. Were all for training in a Champ, but insurance can be expensive and it cant be leveraged into travel or an instrument rating if you want. 
Under a Buck and a Half
You can buy decent, two-seat training machine for under $15,000. The two leading contenders are an older Cessna 150 and a Piper Tomahawk, and the staff here is split on which is a better choice. On paper, its a no-brainer: The Tomahawk is newer, faster, cheaper and it blows away the Cessna in interior comfort and visibility. Obviously there’s a catch: The Piper might bite you.
The Tomahawk has a bad reputation as getting into unrecoverable stalls and spins during training-which is exactly what youre buying the airplane for. The hard numbers on accidents don’t completely support this. There were issues, but most seem to have been resolved by changes imposed by AD. Nonetheless, its not the best stall/spin design ever made and the stigma remains. Since our staff cant agree, we leave it to you and the instructor you must convince to fly with you which sub-$15,000 trainer is best.
Interestingly, the Tomahawk is the only contender we turned up where accident history came up as a decisive factor.