Not to be a continual nattering nabob of negativism, but part of AA's explanation raised another question. If the molecular action of volatus creates lots of postive pressure then the airships are more vulnerable to damage. Puncture the envelope/cells and the gas shoots out, possibly explosively.
The "high vacuum" term from the electrohandwavic gas is absolutely wrong. It's still a bag of gas, with the envelope expanding/contracting to achieve pressure equilibrium. You can handwave it into a density lower than that of hydrogen, but it's still going to be at pressure equilibrium. He's just reduced the mass required to be less than that of hydrogen.
If there was actual vacuum in the envelope, you'd have a pressure vessel, not a balloon. A balloon would collapse under vacuum, whether the vacuum is magical or not. What you'd need instead of a magic gas is a magic foil to cover the envelope with, a lead zeppelin that can take a very strong normal stress for its weight.
This is more like a blimp or child's balloon than a traditional zeppelin, in which the gas is not under any positive pressure. Because of this, relatively large rips and tears in the gas cells, particularly in the lower half of the cell, are not immediately catastrophic for a zeppelin as the loss of lifting gas is slow and the damage is repairable in flight.
Why would gas explode out of a balloon if it's at pressure equilibrium? Why wouldn't it be at or near equilibrium? They don't regularly ascend or descend radically.
It's absolutely more like a traditional zeppelin. Magic gas at local atmospheric pressure, in the presence of a punctured envelope, will act the same way hydrogen does. A whole lot of nothing happens. It'll slowly lose buoyancy as it diffuses with the outside air. There's no explosive change in pressure.
A magic, high-vacuum lead zeppelin is the one that's more dangerous in case of rupture. You're going to have an explosive change in pressure, which will rapidly change your orientation and displace you. After the initial explosion, you have zero buoyancy, and experience full weight. Unless you can somehow manage to parachute out, and I doubt it with the design being somewhat of a spinning bluff body, you're dead.
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