So, a couple of months ago, we held our first Investor Day as Raytheon Technologies and that day we laid out our 2025 goals to deliver strong top line growth, margin expansion and at least $10 billion in free cash flow by 2025, all while continuing to invest in our businesses and return significant cash to our shareowners.
This is demonstrated of course by the significant awards we received this quarter, which included over $1 billion in classified bookings at RIS and two important franchise wins in our Missiles & Defense business where we were awarded almost $2 billion for the Long-Range Standoff weapon or LRSO, and $1.3 billion for the Next-Generation Interceptor.
In the U.S. daily travelers throughout the TSA checkpoints have averaged over $2 million per day in July, and that's more than doubled since January of this year.
So given our performance year-to-date and the recent trends across our end markets, we're going to raise the low end of our full year sales outlook by $500 million to a new range of $64.4 billion to $65.4 billion.
And we're also going to raise and tighten our adjusted earnings per share outlook with a new range of $3.85 to $4 per share and we're increasing our free cash flow outlook to a range of $4.5 billion to $5 billion for the year.
I'm pleased with the strong orders we saw in the quarter, which grew our company backlog to a record $152 billion and that's a 3% increase since the first quarter.
Our defense book-to-bill was a strong 1.12 resulting in a defense backlog of over $66 billion and commercial backlog increased by $3.5 billion in the quarter.
On the capital allocation front, we repurchased $632 million on shares bringing us to over $1 billion in share repurchase year-to-date and we're on track to meet our commitment of buying back at least $2 billion of shares for the year.
We also continue to execute on the merger integration activities and given our substantial progress and the robust pipeline of opportunities, we're going to raise our gross cost synergy target by another $200 million to $1.5 billion and that $1.5 billion will be realized in the four -- first four years following the merger.
That's now 50% more than our original synergy commitment and there's great execution by the team but I would tell you, we're not done yet.
And our Collins Aerostructures business has scheduled over 125 lean events this year, and they're focused on specifically reducing the takt time, labor time for the A320neo nacelle.
We've invested in lean events such as these throughout the pandemic because they've allowed the Aerostructures business to reduce nacelle manufacturing time by over 75%.
Of course, though our normal goal here is about an 87% learning curve, these lean events allow us to exceed that in incredible ways.
The team has made good progress this year, demonstrated a 15% turnaround time, an improvement over the past year.
But importantly, they're on track to drive a 30% reduction by the end of this year.
Altogether, these initiatives will save over $5 billion in cost through 2025.
Sales were $15.9 billion, which was at the high end of our outlook range and up 10% organically versus prior year on an adjusted pro forma basis and up 4% sequentially.
Adjusted earnings per share of $1.03 was ahead of our expectations, primarily driven by commercial aftermarket and contract-related settlements at Collins but also better than expected performance at Pratt, RIS and RMD.
On a GAAP basis, earnings per share from continuing operations was $0.69 per share and included $0.34 of acquisition accounting adjustments and net significant and/or nonrecurring items.
Free cash flow of $966 million exceeded our expectations primarily due to the continuation of better than expected collections and lower than expected capital expenditures.
We achieved $185 million of incremental gross cost synergies in the quarter, bringing our year-to-date savings to $390 million and given the pace that we realize these synergies on to-date, we're increasing our 2021 cost synergy target by $50 million, which brings our new target to the year -- for the year to $660 million.
Collins also achieved nearly $50 million of further acquisition synergies in the quarter, bringing total Rockwell Collins acquisition-related savings to nearly $560 million since the deal closed in November of 2018, and we now expect Collins to meet their $600 million acquisition synergy target in 2021, a year ahead of schedule.
Sales were $4.5 billion in the quarter, up 6% on an adjusted basis driven primarily by the recovery of the commercial aerospace industry, and up 11% on an organic basis.
By channel, commercial aftermarket sales were up 24% driven by a 30% increase in parts and repair, a 16% increase in modification and upgrades, and a 15% increase in provisioning.
Sequentially, commercial aftermarket sales were up 15% with growth in all three channels most notably provisioning, which grew at 40% and parts and repair, which grew 14%.
Commercial OE sales were up 8% from the prior year, driven principally by the recovery of the commercial aerospace industry.
And military sales were down 7% on an adjusted basis to the prior year divestitures and down 1% organically on a tough compare.
Recall Collins military sales were up 10% in the same period last year.
Adjusted operating profit of $518 million was better than expected and was up $494 million from the prior year, driven primarily by higher commercial aftermarket and OE sales, the benefit of continued cost reduction actions as well as favorable contract settlements that were worth about $50 million.
And given the favorable mix in the first half of the year, the commercial recovery and the benefit of cost containment measures, we are increasing Collins full-year operating profit outlook to a new range of up $100 million to $275 million versus prior year.
Sales of $4.3 billion were up 19% on an adjusted basis and up 21% on an organic basis, primarily driven by the recovery of the commercial aerospace industry.
Commercial aftermarket sales were up 41% in the quarter with legacy large commercial engine shop visits up 56% and Pratt Canada shop visits up 18%.
Commercial OEM sales were up 30% driven by higher GTF deliveries within Pratt large commercial engine business and general aviation platforms at Pratt Canada.
Military sales were down 3% also on a tough compare given Pratt's military sales were up 11% in the same period last year.
Adjusted operating profit of $96 million was slightly better than expected and was up $247 million from the prior year, driven primarily by higher commercial aftermarket sales and favorable shop visit mix.
And we are increasing the low end of Pratt's full-year operating profit outlook by $25 million to a new range of down $50 million to up $25 million versus 2020.
RIS sales were $3.8 billion, up 12% versus the prior year on an adjusted basis and adjusted pro forma basis, including the pre-merger stub period, sales were up 6% driven by strength in Airborne ISR Program within sensing and effects as well as strength in the classified cyber programs within cyber training and services.
Adjusted operating profit in the quarter of $415 million was slightly better than expected and was up $86 million year-over-year on an adjusted pro forma basis, driven primarily by program efficiencies.
RAF had $4 billion of bookings in the quarter resulting in strong book-to-bill of 1.13 and a backlog of $19.4 billion.
Significant bookings included approximately $1.1 billion on classified programs as well as several other notable awards, including the STARS follow-on award for the FAA to implement a terminal automation system in their airports, and our first production award for the U.S. Navy Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band system that utilizes RTX industry-leading gallium nitride technology.
It's worth noting that we continue to expect RIS full year book-to-bill to be about 1.
Turning to RIS full year outlook, we continue to expect sales to grow low to mid single digit, and we are increasing the low end of RIS' operating profit outlook by $25 million to a new range of up $150 million to $175 million versus adjusted pro forma 2020.
RMD sales were up $4 billion up 15% to prior year on an adjusted basis and adjusted pro forma basis, which again includes pre-merger stub period.
Sales were up 9% driven primarily by higher volume on the international Patriot program and on StormBreaker program, both which included liquidation of pre-contract costs.
Adjusted operating profit of $532 million was slightly better than expected and was up $121 million versus prior year on adjusted pro forma basis due to favorable mix and higher program efficiencies.
RMD had $6.1 billion of bookings in the quarter resulting in an exceptionally strong book-to-bill of 1.55, and a backlog of $29.7 billion.
We also continue to expect RMD's full year book-to-bill to be about 1.
Turning to RMD's full-year outlook, we continue to expect sales to grow low to mid single digit, and we are increasing the low end of RMD's operating profit by $25 million to a new range of up $50 million to $75 million versus 2020 on an adjusted pro forma basis.
Keep in mind about 65% of 2019 air travel was international.
As Greg mentioned, we're increasing our gross merger cost synergy target to $1.5 billion and that's driven by higher savings from the corporate and segment consolidations as well as additional procurement and supply chain savings.
As Greg discussed, we're bringing up the low end of our sales range by $500 million and we're raising our adjusted earnings per share range to $3.85 to $4 per share or up about $0.33 from the midpoint of our prior outlook.
About half of the increase comes from the segments, primarily Collins and the other half is from $0.13 of tax improvement and about $0.03 of lower corporate tax items.
The $0.13 tax benefit is driven by the ongoing optimization of the company's legal and financing structure that we expect to realize discretely in the third quarter.
On the cash side, given the improved earnings outlook, we now expect free cash flow in the range of $4.5 billion to $5 billion for the year.

Summary:
So given our performance year-to-date and the recent trends across our end markets, we're going to raise the low end of our full year sales outlook by $500 million to a new range of $64.4 billion to $65.4 billion.
Sales were $15.9 billion, which was at the high end of our outlook range and up 10% organically versus prior year on an adjusted pro forma basis and up 4% sequentially.
Adjusted earnings per share of $1.03 was ahead of our expectations, primarily driven by commercial aftermarket and contract-related settlements at Collins but also better than expected performance at Pratt, RIS and RMD.
On a GAAP basis, earnings per share from continuing operations was $0.69 per share and included $0.34 of acquisition accounting adjustments and net significant and/or nonrecurring items.
As Greg discussed, we're bringing up the low end of our sales range by $500 million and we're raising our adjusted earnings per share range to $3.85 to $4 per share or up about $0.33 from the midpoint of our prior outlook.
On the cash side, given the improved earnings outlook, we now expect free cash flow in the range of $4.5 billion to $5 billion for the year.