99% Invisible: Airships and the Future that Never Was. March 28, 2018 by Garret Vreeland in History, Travel, Vehicles Eventually, parts of the R101 were sold for scrap, and “according to a newspaper account,” reports Hammack, “it was sold to the Zeppelin company and they used part of that metal to make the Hindenburg.”There's some ... irony ... for you.