Pretty insane you can fly these with no license or certificates when basically all drones require having your TRUST certificate or full on drone license to fly.
That’s because people with drones were assholes. Flying into people’s yards and demanding their property back, or suing because it broke. All kinds of stupid shit.
1. These can only be flown in most class E airspace and class G, so not anywhere close to most airports
2. They are much bigger and more visible than drones
3. The ultralight pilot is inside the aircraft which means “see and avoid” is much more reasonable
It’s hard to compare ultralights to drones IMO as a licensed pilot
Barrier to entry. With a $1,000 drone you can be doing something stupid in an hour and not second-guess yourself right up until it crashes into somebody's head at full speed. On the other hand, for an ultralight you've shelled out $27,000 (current price for an Aerolite 103), plus costs for storage, transportation, arrangements for taking off at a small airfield, etc.
If a drone crashes into my house the only harm to the pilot is financial.
That gives the ultralight pilots a much bigger incentive to not do stupid things with their aircraft.
2. Ultralights have to stay out of cities and towns and can't fly over large groups of people.
That puts some more on how much damage they can do to other people and other people's properties than drones have.