 He was Hydrographer of the Navy from May 1908 to January 1910.In 1916, Winterhalter conducted experiments aboard USS "Washington" (ACR-11) to evaluate acoustic ranging techniques.He sailed "Washington" on different courses relative to a lightship that was transmitting radio waves and air- and water-mediated sound waves, and found that submarine sound waves were a more reliable guide than air-mediated sound.This was the first attempt to determine distance using acoustics, and a similar technique was later used for hydrographic surveys.