You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: A few comments before I turn to the highlights.
We continue to feel good about the long-term fundamentals of our business and our ability to drive growth and margin expansion over the next several years.
During the quarter, we made great progress on cost reduction, driving operational excellence to our businesses and achieved some notable milestones, which I'll touch on in just a moment.
From a market perspective, commercial air traffic continued to recover, despite some regional impacts from the COVID variants, with global ASMs or available seat miles, estimated to have grown about 30% sequentially in Q3.
And here in the U.S., passenger traffic through TSA checkpoints averaged about 1.9 million travelers per day in Q3.
That's up from about 1.6 million per day in Q2.
International borders, as we know, are starting to reopen, and that's another positive.
'22 budget request was in line with our expectations.
And as we've said, defense spending is nonpartisan, and we're encouraged to see Congress supporting plus ups to the President's budget that are also aligned to our business and our investments in new technologies.
Overall, we continue to be cautiously optimistic on both the commercial and defense trends that we're seeing.
Let's move to slide two.
Some highlights from the quarter.
Adjusted earnings per share exceeded our expectations.
Free cash flow was in line with what we expected, and we delivered another quarter of top and bottom line growth on both a year-over-year and a sequential basis as we capitalize on the commercial aftermarket recovery, and our defense portfolio continues to grow.
Based on our strong performance year-to-date, we're again increasing and tightening our adjusted earnings per share outlook for the year to $4.10 to $4.20 a share.
That's up from our prior outlook of $3.85 to $4.
Neil Mitchill will get you into the details on sales and free cash flow, where we're also tightening our outlook in both areas.
On the capital allocation front, we repurchased about $1 billion of RTX shares during the quarter, bringing our total for the year to $2 billion, which was our commitment that we talked about back in Q2.
Let me cover some strategic and operational highlights for the quarter, where we continued to execute on our key programs.
Starting with strategic highlights.
We'd announced the acquisition of FlightAware, which will become a significant accelerator for Collins connected ecosystem strategy and enhances our capabilities in growth areas like aviation network services, digital solutions and airspace modernization and we're organizing our business around optimizing these capabilities within Collins Aerospace.
We also announced the acquisition of SEAKR Engineering, a leading provider of advanced space electronic solutions.
SEAKR strengthens our offerings to solve our customers' most complex problems by expanding our space-based capabilities.
With the integration of Blue Canyon, this also enhances RIS' competitiveness and reliability of satellite bus hardware and customized space electronics.
At the same time, we continue to divest noncore businesses.
During the quarter, we announced an agreement to divest of our global training and services business, which is a part of RIS.
On the operational side, the Missiles & Defense team and their industry partners successfully completed the first test of a scramjet-powered Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept, or HAWC, for DARPA and the U.S. Air Force.
The HAWC successfully sustained hypersonic speeds, offering faster time on target and greater maneuverability.
The successful test puts us on track to deliver a prototype system to the U.S. Department of Defense.
And lastly, at Pratt, the Columbus Forge Disc business continues to integrate critical operations to drive further quality, performance and cost reduction.
Utilizing our core operating system tools, the team in Columbus reduced the lead time of forgings by up to 35 days and reduced both cost and inventory.
As you can see, driving operational excellence through our organization is a key to our success over the long term.
I'm on slide three.
So I'm pleased with our performance in the quarter, where we saw strong year-over-year sales growth, adjusted earnings growth and free cash flow.
Sales of $16.2 billion were up 10% organically versus prior year on an adjusted basis.
Our performance was driven by the continued recovery of domestic and short-haul international air travel and continued growth in defense.
That was partially offset by some supply chain pressures and lower 787 OE volume.
And while we expect these headwinds to continue in the near term, we only see this as a timing issue.
Nonetheless, we remain focused on our cost actions and program execution to drive continued earnings and cash flow growth.
Adjusted earnings per share of $1.26 was ahead of our expectations, primarily driven by Collins, Pratt and some corporate items.
On a GAAP basis, earnings per share from continuing operations was $0.93 per share and included $0.33 of acquisition accounting adjustments and net significant and/or nonrecurring items.
It's worth noting that both GAAP and adjusted earnings per share benefited from about $0.16 of lower tax expense related to previously disclosed actions we took to optimize the company's legal entity and operating structure in the quarter as well as pension-related benefit that was worth about $0.05.
Free cash flow of $1.5 billion was in line with our expectations, keeping us on track for the full year.
Before I hand it over to Jennifer, let me give you a little color on our synergy progress.
During the quarter, we achieved about $165 million of incremental merger gross cost synergies.
And given our strong performance, we are again increasing our 2021 target and now expect to achieve over $700 million of cost synergies this year.
This will bring us to nearly $1 billion in cumulative gross cost synergies since the merger, and we're well on our way to meeting our $1.5 billion commitment.
So with that, let me hand it over to Jennifer to take you through the segment results.
Starting with Collins Aerospace on slide four.
Sales were $4.6 billion in the quarter, up 7% on an adjusted basis and up 9% on an organic basis, driven primarily by the continued recovery in the commercial aerospace end markets.
By channel, commercial aftermarket sales were up 38%, driven by a 44% increase in parts and repair, a 43% increase in provisioning and a 22% increase in modifications and upgrades.
Sequentially, commercial aftermarket sales were up 4%, roughly in line with our expectations.
Commercial OE sales were down 3%, with strength in narrow-body more than offset by lower wide-body deliveries, primarily 787.
And military sales were down 5% on an adjusted basis and down 1% organically on a tough compare.
Recall, Collins' military sales were up 8% in the same period last year.
Adjusted operating profit of $480 million was up $407 million from the prior year.
Higher commercial aftermarket sales, favorable mix and synergy capture more than offset lower military volume.
Looking ahead, due to expected supply chain pressures and 787 OE delivery headwinds, we now expect Collins full year sales to be down mid-single digit.
However, given the continued recovery in the commercial aftermarket and the benefit of cost-containment measures, we are increasing Collins full year operating profit outlook to a new range of up $250 million to $300 million versus 2020.
Shifting to Pratt & Whitney on slide five.
Sales of $4.7 billion were up 25% on an adjusted basis and up 35% on an organic basis, primarily driven by the continued recovery of the commercial aerospace industry.
Commercial aftermarket sales were up 56% in the quarter, with legacy large commercial engine shop visits up 49% and Pratt Canada shop visits up 18%.
Sequentially, commercial aftermarket sales were up 17%.
Commercial OE sales were up 22%, driven by higher GTF deliveries within Pratt's large commercial engine business.
The military business sales were up 2% on another tough compare.
Recall, Pratt military sales were up 11% in the same period last year.
Growth in the quarter was driven by a continued ramp in F-135 sustainment, which was particularly offset -- input on production and classified development programs.
Adjusted operating profit of $189 million was better than expected and was up $232 million from the prior year.
Drop-through on higher commercial aftermarket sales, more than offset the impact of higher commercial OE volume and higher SG&A and E&D.
Looking ahead, due to the continued commercial aerospace recovery, we now expect Pratt's full year sales to be up mid-single digit.
In addition, we are increasing Pratt's full year operating profit outlook to a new range of flat to up $50 million versus 2020.
Turning now to slide six.
RIS sales of $3.7 billion were in line with prior year results on an adjusted basis and down 1% on an organic basis, driven primarily by the timing of material input from suppliers.
Adjusted operating profit in the quarter of $391 million was in line with expectations and was up $41 million year-over-year on an adjusted basis, driven primarily by higher program efficiencies.
RIS had $2.9 billion of bookings in the quarter, resulting in a book-to-bill of 0.84, as expected, and a backlog of $18.7 billion.
Significant bookings included approximately $1 billion on classified programs.
It's worth noting that we expect RIS full year book-to-bill to be greater than 1.
Turning to RIS full year outlook.
Due to the timing of material inputs from suppliers, we now see RIS sales growing low single digit.
However, as a result of improved productivity, we continue to expect RIS' operational -- operating profit to grow $150 million to $175 million versus adjusted pro forma 2020.
Turning now to slide seven.
RMD sales were $3.9 billion, up 7% on an adjusted basis and up 5% on an organic basis, driven by liquidations of precontract costs on an AMRAAM award received in the quarter and the expected ramp in our NASAMS franchise.
Adjusted operating profit of $490 million was in line with our expectations and was up $59 million versus the prior year, primarily on higher sales volume.
RMD's bookings in the quarter were approximately $3.9 billion, resulting in a book-to-bill of 1.02 and a backlog of $29.6 billion.
Significant bookings in the quarter included AMRAAM Lot 35 for $570 million, a Patriot GEM-T order for $432 million as well as several other notable awards.
We also expect RMD's full year book-to-bill to be greater than 1.
We remain confident in our full year outlook for RMD, with sales growing low to mid-single digit and operating profit growing $50 million to $75 million versus adjusted pro forma 2020.
I'm on slide eight.
As we look ahead at the fourth quarter, we continue to be encouraged by the recovery of commercial air travel that has driven sequential aftermarket growth so far this year.
However, the recovery of long-haul international traffic continues to lag expectations.
And on the OE side, 787 build rates have come down more than we had expected, resulting in a significant impact to our top line outlook for the year.
Additionally, we aren't immune to the global supply chain pressures that are seeing some isolated impacts from the supply chain, primarily at Collins and RIS.
However, we are working with our suppliers to mitigate these timing issues.
And finally, while we anticipate the pending vaccine mandate may put further pressure on the supply chain in the near term, higher vaccination rates will continue to build confidence in the safety of air travel going forward.
So with that backdrop, we're adjusting our sales outlook and now see full year sales of about $65 billion, slightly higher than the low end of our prior outlook.
However, given the strong performance on cost control, synergy capture and program execution, we are raising and tightening our adjusted earnings per share range to $4.10 to $4.20 per share or up about $0.22 from the midpoint of our prior outlook.
About $0.07 of the increase comes from the segments, Collins and Pratt, and the remainder comes from improvements in corporate items.
And on the cash side, we are also raising the low end of our free cash flow outlook and now see free cash flow of approximately $5 billion for the full year.
With that, I'll hand it back to Greg to wrap things up.
So we're on slide nine.
And this is just kind of our view of the operating environment that we're facing going into 2022.
Now we're not going to give specific guidance on 2022 today, other than to say that the trends that we talked about in our May investor conference are proving to be pretty much on track with what we're seeing for next year.
On the positive side, obviously, we expect the commercial aerospace recovery to continue, and we feel good about our ability to grow our defense franchises with our robust $65 billion backlog and the bipartisan support for the fiscal '22 -- fiscal year '22 budget, and of course, the international demand for our products and technologies continues to be strong.
We're also laser-focused on driving operational excellence to deliver cost reduction and further margin [expansion].
This is really a part of our core operating system rollout.
Again, it gives us confidence so that we can continue to grow the margins along the trajectory that we talked about.
On the challenges side, no real surprises here.
We anticipate the global supply chain pressure will continue and that lower 787 build rates will carry into next year.
Again, none of these are, I guess, new to us.
We'll manage through them, but something I think everybody is going to face in the industry.
And of course, we are watching and monitoring, if you will, the reopening of international borders.
It all looks to be positive so far.
But again, the COVID variants could change that in a hurry.
Global tax and inflationary environment are also a concern as we think about next year.
And lastly, the impact of the COVID vaccine mandate.
As you know, all federal contractors are required by December eight to have all of our employees vaccinated.
We certainly expect that there will be some disruption in both the supply chain and with our customers as a result of this, but we're going to work our way through it.
So before we get to the Q&A, let me just close by saying that I'm really pleased with our performance in the quarter, and I'm confident in the strength of our businesses as we look ahead.
I want to reiterate, we remain focused on supporting our employees, customers, suppliers and our communities.
But our most important mission is keeping our employees safe.
And finally, the strength of our balance sheet, along with the cash-generating capabilities of our business, will continue to provide us with financial flexibility to support investments in our business while still returning capital to shareowners, including our commitment to return at least $20 billion to shareowners in the first four years following the merger.

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raytheon technologies q3 gaap earnings per share $0.93 from continuing operations.
q3 adjusted earnings per share $1.26.
q3 gaap earnings per share $0.93 from continuing operations.
q3 sales $16.2 billion.
sees fy adjusted earnings per share $4.10 to $4.20.

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