A school-level physics calculation is enough to debunk it in a minute.
Earth orbital velocity is roughly 8000 m/s. To achieve even a small fraction of it by spinning, the projectile and the device must withstand centrifugal acceleration:
a = V ^ 2 / r
Let's assume we obtain 1/8th of the orbital velocity, which will give a significant fuel reduction, thanks to fuel is exponential to delta V.
r of the full-scale should be 136 m (small-scale diameter is 91 m as in the article, scaled by 3 as said there too, divided by 2)
1000 ^ 2 / 136 = 7352 m/s^2 = 750 g.
I leave to the others to calculate how many RPMs should the device make. There's no material that can withstand such forces for extention. Many projects of energy conservation with flywheel were cancelled because sighnificantly heavy and large flywheels (couple of tons and just about 1 meter in radius) tear themselves apart at 2-3K RPM.
I've not heard of any devices handling 100g over any significantly long periods of time.