What you are doing strikes me as a bit of over-kill to get sensor data. You could do this by setting up Ardupilot as ArduPlane, then just read the telemetry data (over SiK radio?) and never execute a flight plan.
There are two other options you might want to consider:
Take an old Android phone and set it up to collect sensor data (barometer, GPS, IMU, etc). I have gone this path for simple projects (and even flown a phone on an RC airplane - complete with video).
Hook the sensors directly to a Raspberry Pi. You can plug an old puck GPS into the USB, and places like AdaFruit have some nice sensors and code.