That is truly the Right Stuff. What qualifies as derring-do for Chinese pilots is seeing how close they can get to the prop of a P-3 without getting chewed to bits. Sometimes they live to see another day.

Maybe 60 years from now, when the ideological debates have cooled…

Sixty years ago we would have been strafing the Germans, not saving them. Sixty years from now it might be our Afghan wingman helping us rescue an Iranian team in a Chinese box canyon.