Special Tactics Advanced Skills Training, Hurlburt Field, Fla. Advanced skills training is a 12-to-15-month program for newly assigned combat controller operators. AST produces mission-ready operators for the Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command. The AST schedule is broken down into four phases: water, ground, employment and full mission profile.
Saltatory Conduction. As in un-myelinated axons, the first action potential in myelinated axons takes place at the initial segment of an axon and is generated by a threshold stimulus from the dendrites and cell body. Subsequent action potentials occur at the nodes of Ranvier, where the Na+ voltage-gated channels are located. Therefore, when nerve impulses travel down a myelinated axon, they appear to jump from node to node - in a process called saltatory conduction. Each nodal action potential is triggered by a threshold stimulus created by passive current from the previous node.
The speed of a nerve impulse varies with the type of nerve impulse the nervous system is sending. Some signals such as those for muscle position, travel at speeds up to 119m/s. Nerve impulses such as pain signals travel slower at 0.61m/s. Touch signals travel at speeds of 76.2m/s. If you are reading this at this moment and thinking at the same time, which some people may have trouble with, thought signals are traveling at speeds ranging between 20 and 30 meters per second.