Based at New York City and then at Norfolk, Virginia, through the 1920s and into the 1930s, "Sandpiper" operated with the fleet, off the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts during the summer and fall and in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico during the winter. Each spring, she returned north. While deployed for winter maneuvers, she participated in annual fleet problems, including problems I (February 1923) and IX (January 1929) in which the use of aircraft allowed the attacking force to break through, and render obsolete, the defenses of the Panama Canal Zone.