Notso's about on the money there. The cross sectional area ideally should remain the same except for a very gradual reduction before and after the wing. So the fuselage will be waisted at the area of the wing and tailplane. It's something to do with minimising form drag and the way the airflow behaves at transonic and supersonic speeds.
I think that they were called 'Kuchmann' pods??? (on the Convair 990) designed to delay the onset of the shockwave on the wing.
Bl00dy 'ell Notso I'm nearly as old as you.
