A ship's engine failed and no one could fix it, so they brought in a guy with 40 years experience.
He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.
After looking things over, the guy reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer.
He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine burst back into life.
The engine was fixed!
7 Days later the owners got his bill for $10,000.
"What?!" the owners said. "You hardly did anything. Send us an itemized bill."
The engine expert sent a reply that simply said:
Tapping with a hammer: $2
Knowing where to tap: $9,998
Don't ever underestimate experience.
I know that is a sea story but I actually did witness something like this on my first ship.
We were new construction and out on our first sea trials. I was inside one of my gun mounts to witness a test and we
were experiencing a mysterious hydraulic issue. Within an hour, we had 10 or 15 tech reps and senior enlisted folks
in the space trying to figure out what was wrong. Tech manuals and piping diagrams were in heavy use but nobody, even
the manufacturer's two tech reps were making any headway when the shipyard's Chief Test Engineer came through the
hatch. Evidently he'd already heard what the symptoms were because little was said. He walked around the equipment
a couple of times looking upward at the maze of piping that the four separate hydraulic systems fed. Finally he looked
around and asked for an adjustable wrench. When it was handed to him, he reached up with it and whacked one of the
hydraulic lines where it had a check valve attached.
The problem was fixed and the test resumed. I would not believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.
This stuff really does happen sometimes.