Helen Naomi Heron-Maxwell (25 Jun 1913–1983) was a British woman parachutist and glider pilot in the 1930s.

[4] Her mother "played an April Fools' trick on her, faking a letter from Cobham to say that he "will no longer be requiring your services owing to what he has read in the papers"".

[3] Heron-Maxwell's reasons for taking the job are variously given as to do "for fun and the thrill of doing something dangerous", to show that the parachute is safe and "no one should hesitate to use it if the emergency arises", and to earn money.

[13] "On her first free fall with the new equipment, she succeeded in missing the rip-cord handle, and her very low opening was not appreciated by the management.

[13] Another colleague, Frederick Marsland, was killed in a separate incident, and Heron-Maxwell's then boyfriend asked her not to perform again.

[3] Heron-Maxwell learnt to glide first in 1936 at Greisheim in Germany, then with Fred Slingsby in a Falcon III, and then in a Buzzard glider at Darmstadt.

[16][17] Heron-Maxwell translated Wolf Hirth's Die Hohe Schule des Segelfluges from German as The Art of Soaring Flight, published in 1939.

[1][20][21] In a lecture at Hull Literary and Philosophical Society, "With slides, diagrams and film, as well as commentary, lucid and unemotional, she indicated that gliding was a science, based on cool calculation, though always strangely fascinating and, in the ultimate, uncanny".