Vertical stabilizers are there because they need to align with diverter plates for stealth don't they? Otherwise they would have to maybe align with outer side of inlet like su 57 and that would be a bit too far
I'm talking entirely hypothethically, I don't see this happening at all really but just as a thought exercise, in a scenario where especially Turkey - Nato relations continue to sour, a Pakistan - China - Turkey joint naval taskforce in Indian ocean would shake the world a quite bit.
If it flies and finds things needs to be fixed, these are problems what would have occured at a later point and would delay the project. If such issues are found earlier by a couple years because we flew a prototype early that would accelerate the project compared to other approach. But yes this...
First prototype was made befofe CDR was finished so there isn't much point to making more prototypes before that. KF21 was at a different stage of its development lifecycle.
