[WildTurkey]

At the risk of being a spoil sport, it seems to me that it would be pretty easy to do a solo, around the world, unrefueled flight by taking a 747, stripping out all the seats and adding additional fuel tanks in the cargo hold and the passenger compartment. You'd probably have to overload it a bit and the takeoff would be a little hairy, but that also seems to be the case with Rutan's design.

Check the numbers. It will either never leave the ground or it will not make it around the earth.

[r9etb]

Check the numbers. It will either never leave the ground or it will not make it around the earth.

Range for a fully-loaded 747 is about 5200 nmi, or roughly 25% of the way around the world. That assumes a constant payload weight (not true if the payload is fuel) and a standard fuel load (also not true if the payload is fuel).

You may be correct, and I'm not an airplane performance guy, but I think that, given these factors, a suitably-modified 747 could probably get pretty close to making it.