Time for me to jump in...When I was hired @ AAL in Feb 1966, I was trained initially as
F/E on the CV-990. At the time, it was touted as the fastest airliner, based on MMO of .912. When AAL bought these aircraft, it was based, in part, on Convair's promise of the fastest airliner. To achieve this, various configurations of "anti-shock bodies" were tested (I've seen pictures of as many as seven/wing). The two/wing config
achieved the best results.
A few interesting sidelights to all this:
The outboard "ASB's" carried fuel (I can't remember how much). This fuel was burned in the climb so as to avoid a cruise limitation of M .78 with fuel in the ASB's!
The drag curve increased so rapidly that if one were cruising at .85 (typical), without touching the throttles you could nose over to a descent rate of 1500'/min and the speed would increase only to about .88!
It had alot of quirks, too many to mention here, but it was proof that Mickey Mouse was alive and well desiging planes for Convair!
Cheers, EBD