EagleFlight

Just at the end?

I can't speak for everyone at my airline, but I try to predict which runway they'll be using at the destination. I'll pull up an ATIS at the destination airport through ACARS to see what the current weather and active runways are. Sometimes they change in flight but that just requires changing a few things in the cockpit and doing a quick re-brief of the procedure. As for the landing itself, I usually just close my eyes and hope for the best.

Not certain, but I'd imagine it has something to do with the immense amount of thrust put out during takeoff, so they retract in order to not be damaged. Just my thought but someone with more intimate knowledge can surely give you a more accurate answer.

I fly the EMB-145 for an airline in the US and I asked this very question to one of my ground school instructors. I don't have a very mechanical mind and I'm certainly far from being an engineer, so I was curious to know why the Embraer uses a predominantly DC electrical system while other airplanes (CRJ, etc) use a predominantly AC system. He said that, in simple terms, the capacity of DC is greater than AC so that's why Embraer decided to use a DC system. I've talked to numerous pilots and they said that Embraer got the design right because while our electrical system is very complicated, from a pilot standpoint there's not much we need to deal with in the cockpit. Our plane is very automated and uses a lot of electrical power, and even the flaps on the Embraer are electric, not hydraulic. We use a small amount of AC power for the avionics, but we never touch the buttons for that system unless it's an emergency. I hope this isn't too hard to understand, but in a nutshell DC power is used for large power draws and AC is for components that don't need such a high capacity (avionics). I hope it helps!