Scientists have investigated how quickly hoverflies start beating their wings when dropped both in complete darkness and in a lighted environment. Starting from rest, the insects were dropped from the top of a 50 - cm tall box. In the light, those flies that began flying 200 m s after being dropped avoided hitting the bottom of the box 87 % of the time, while those in the dark avoided hitting only 25 % of the time.

Required:
a. How far would a fly have fallen in the 200 ms before it began to beat its wings?
b. How long would it take for a fly to hit the bottom if it never began to fly? In seconds.