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he almost ran out of gas and on the way down at three thousand feet the engine stopped, so he glided in to a landing.
   Johnstone was entered in a meet at Overland Park, Denver, Colorado, on November sixteenth to nineteenth. Also at this even were Brookins and Hoxsey. There, during the afternoon of the seventeenth, Johnstone, at age thirty, was killed instantly in a bad crash. He was making a tight spiral drop and for some time had been trying to beat Brookins record of a complete circle in five second. Evidently he stressed the machine beyond its limit and at eight hundred feet a strut failed and the wings collapsed. Wilbur Wright said of him later, "Johnstone always wanted to be able to do anything anyone else could do, and do it better if possible." Brookins took Johnstone's remains to Kansas City for burial. He was survived by his wife and two children living in New York, an invalid sister and an uncle, both living in Kansas city. He had married his wife, a German, in Berlin during his traveling days.
   Flying Pioneer Ralph Johnstone was a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow, did not care for fancy dress and was highly respected by all who knew him. As one of the very first Wright Exhibitiion Team his name will always remain in the history of early American public flying where famous deeds are recorded. 
   The risky, daring work which that first famous team performed contributed much to the fame of the Wright Brothers exhibition team, and history must well record the important part they played in proving to a doubting public that man indeed could really fly. Johnstone's name is on the Wright Memorial Plaque at Dayton along with the other pioneers who learned to fly there.