One interesting side story on the decommissioning of the aircraft occurred after all the ceremonies were over. As part of the ceremony to inaugurate the aircraft into the museum, the museum had a group of key pilots and engineers from NASA and Bell sign the nose of the aircraft. The new Bell president nicknamed “Red”, who had only been at Bell a few months, and never worked for NASA or Bell took the liberty to sign his name on the nose of the aircraft in big letters. The man had literally nothing to do with the development of the XV-15, but he felt the need to add his name next to all those deserving people for posterity.
Of course when the aircraft was decommissioned the mechanics “accidentally” spilled solvent over just his signature and needed to wipe it off
Here is an X2 story on signed panels. At the end of the Elmira flight test program at Schweizer, the Florida guys were packing up the aircraft to take it south to do the envelope expansion. The Sikorsky crew chief was having all the Schweizer folks who worked the program sign one of the panels on the inside. I took my oldest over to show him the aircraft before it left. They gave me the sharpie so I could sign then they handed it to my 8 year old to sign it also. He didn't actually work on it at all though I did. Those signatures are in the Smithsonian now. The X2 is parked right next to the XV-15.