On 13 December 2018, Stucky and co-pilot Frederick Sturckow flew VSS Unity VP-03, a Virgin Galactic test flight which reached an apogee of 82.7 km (51.4 mi).

After being fired from Virgin Galactic in 2021, Stucky was hired by Blue Origin to be part of that company's Advanced Development Team in October of that year.

Stucky's interest in hang gliding led to a design project which resulted in a scholarship to study at Kansas State University; he graduated in 1980 with a B.S.

While there, he followed news of a private spacecraft which had made sub-orbital flights: in 2004 SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, flew into space three times.

In 2005 Rutan and Branson co-founded The Spaceship Company, a further manufacturing entity expressly intended to supply Virgin Galactic with a fleet of SpaceShipTwo craft.

[5] During this period he also served as president of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots for a one-year stint, the normal term of the organization's leadership.

[6] In 2016 Stucky piloted the first free flight of the second SpaceShipTwo craft VSS Unity,[7] following release from its companion mother ship, the White Knight Two-class VMS Eve.

[8] It was later revealed there was a course deviation on the 11 July flight, which triggered a Federal Aviation Administration investigation, to which Stucky stated, "the most misleading statement today was Virgin Galactic's.

The facts are the pilots failed to trim to achieve the proper pitch rate, the winds were well within limits, they did nothing of substance to address the trajectory error, and entered Class A airspace without authorization.