On Thursday, December 19, 2013 1:23:08 AM UTC+4, Ian wrote:

I wonder how easily this device could be converted into one that can
transmit glider airspeed during a winch launch back to the winch driver?

Ian, the functionality you've mentioned about is falling into category of
"remote monitoring of an aircraft's telemetry".
There could be numerous applications of that functionality. One of the examples
is a first solo flight. Instructor, while on the ground, can prevent inadvertent low altitude stall.

Ground station device ("winch" device is your case) could be not necessarily "dedicated device".
Beacause of commonly used Wi-Fi technology, average Android tablet will likely be able to receive
and display the telemetry from an aircraft doing a close traffic pattern work.
Provided that tablet's built-in or external USB module is supported to work
in "monitor mode" ( http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers ) .

Sensors, such as barometric, are typically low power consumption devices.
It is not necessary to feed them from USB bus. They can operate from a coin-sized battery for weeks
while submitting the measurement data troough Low Energy Bluetooth ver.4 protocol.
One known good example is the SensorTag ( http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2541dk-sensor ) USD25 device from Texas Instruments.
One can attach similar sensor to the pitot tube and submit data to Argus PM module by Bluetooth.


What I can do for now is - I can create a "Feature requests" list. And I'll put the count "1" on this particular feature.
When once upon a time the counter's value will become sufficent and there will be enough volunteers
to contribute something into this project - I will suggest them to implement this feature.