Squawk,
He is hiring the aircraft. Cost of the trip is about $400,000, this is all on his website or maybe media releases I have seen. I do get your point. In fact I agree with you the easy part would be the flight around the world. To back this up, most of the stories/books and articles I have read about people who have flown solo around the world all stated that they were glad to leave because it meant no more chasing the almighty dollar, attending funds raising dinners, chasing sponsors, smoozing donors etc etc.
The flip side is, does the fact Dick Smith could self fund his solo Chopper navigation of the world take away from the feat itself?
But back to my point, it certainly may make the pre-trip "stuff" easier, but I don't think it affects the actual physical feat in the least.
Cheers
CB