Heinrich Dorfmann Quotes in The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

Heinrich Dorfmann: Mr. Towns, you behave as if stupidity were a virtue. Why is that?

Heinrich Dorfmann: I told you there would be no difficulty in building this aeroplane. I also told you it would require an outstanding pilot to fly it. The only thing outstanding about you, Mr. Towns, is your stupidity.

Lew Moran: It may not be the best possible advertisement. but Frank Towns is probably one of the few really great pilots left in this push-button world of yours.

Heinrich Dorfmann: Oh, really?

Lew Moran: [angrily] Yes, 'Oh, really!' He was flying by the seat of his pants in planes that were nothing more than bits and pieces before you even went to school!

Heinrich Dorfmann: That's precisely what is wrong - he has remembered everything and learned nothing!

'Ratbags' Crow: Sometimes I wonder how you chaps never won the war.

Heinrich Dorfmann: War?

'Ratbags' Crow: [making sputtering sounds like an airplane and gesturung to suggest a plane flying in a mocking fashion]

Heinrich Dorfmann: [trying not to respond in kind] I wasn't involved.

'Ratbags' Crow: [makes a sound like a machine gun, falls down on the sand, and rolls over] That's it then! That's why they never won!

'Ratbags' Crow: [in a mocking tone] They didn't have old Heinrich!

Heinrich Dorfmann: Gentlemen, I have been examining this aeroplane.

Frank Towns: Yeah?

Heinrich Dorfmann: Yes. We've everything we need here to build a new one and fly it out. Now, if you'd like to have a look at my calculations, I don't know whether you can read my handwriting.

Frank Towns: Are you trying to be funny?

Heinrich Dorfmann: What did you say?

Frank Towns: I said, are you trying to be funny?

Heinrich Dorfmann: That is precisely the reaction I would have expected from a man of your obvious limitations.

Heinrich Dorfmann: I must say, without a radio, you would have expected them to turn for their alternate airport by now. Wouldn't you?

Trucker Cobb: I don't know, you grew up boy? Are you from the oil fields?

Heinrich Dorfmann: My brother's there Dorfmann. I went to visit him on a holiday.

Trucker Cobb: You went to visit your brother a general?

Heinrich Dorfmann: Yes he's chief under the geophysicist for the Iraqi oil company. That pilot, I would have thought he was a little elderly to be flying without a copilot. Wouldn't you?

Trucker Cobb: That sand's a bastard you know that, a real bastard.