How much time and money is required to get the proper training/paperwork to fly?
And how much does a good ultralight cost?
"And how much does a good ultralight cost?"
There is no paperwork needed to fly an ultralight, no license is required for you or the craft! And (legally) the same is true about training, BUT if you've never flown before, you'd have to be some kind of damn fool to just jump in an ultralight, firewall the throttle and take off screaming, yippee ki yi yea! Clint Eastwood said it best, "a man's got to know his limitations".
Flying is not a form of transportation, it's an art form, it's a sport, it's the ultimate thrill, its a ballet in three dimensional space. And unless you've have made yourself intimately familiar with the aeronautics of how your craft works and handles, you will eventually have a very unpleasant experience.
The simplest way is to hire an instructor pilot to teach you flying in a small plane, similar in handling to an ultralight, something like a Cessna 152. Check at any small airport in your vicinity. It won't be as expensive as you might think, because you only need the lessons up to, but not including, your first solo flight. That should be about 10 hours of flight time. That shouldn't break the piggy bank. By then you'll have enough bookwork, theory and hands-on flying experience to be more than qualified to fly ultralights.
You will have landed an aircraft and taken it off. You will have learned how and why that it's the throttle, and not the stick, that makes your aircraft go up or down. You'll know what causes stalls and spins and how to get into them and how to get out of them. And how to do them just because they're fun to do. You will have learned the rules and customs of flying. And you'll know how to land your plane safely in the event of an in-flight emergency, like an engine failure (trust me, it will happen to you sometime!)
As for expense, DO NOT plan on buying an ultralight when you first get started, rent them. Get used to your flying experience first, have a blast, try some stunts, push that baby to its limits! And learn more about just what YOU want from an ultralight. After 6 months to a year, you'll be so familiar with what the market offers (both new and used) and what you can afford, that I'll be asking you rather than you asking me.
You can get a new, fully equipped ultralight for under $10,000 or far far less than you'd pay for a Harley or a motor home or that vacation cottage or any other hobby or sport. But by the time you've found just the right model and just the right Rotax engine (and accessories), it will likely be more than that.
--Boot Hill