The capital read starts with structure, and at RTX the structure is the backlog. The company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, filed February 5, 2024 under accession 0000101829-24-000008, reports total backlog of $196 billion, up from $175 billion a year earlier. Inside that figure, the filing states that defense backlog was $78 billion at the end of 2023 versus $69 billion at the end of 2022.

Backlog is the cleanest forward-looking number an industrial filer discloses, because it represents firm orders that the company expects to convert into future sales. Set the $196 billion against RTX's reported full-year 2024 revenue of $80.74 billion — itself up from $68.92 billion in 2023 and $67.07 billion in 2022, per the company's XBRL facts — and the book covers well over two years of work at the current pace. For a company spanning commercial aerospace and defense, that is a demand signal with a long tail.

The split matters as much as the total. The growth from $69 billion to $78 billion in defense backlog is the part of the book least sensitive to the air-travel cycle, anchored instead in multiyear government programs. The commercial side of the backlog rides a different driver — engine and aftermarket demand tied to fleet utilization — and the two together are why a single quarter's revenue print understates how much of RTX's future is already contracted.

The transaction question for a markets reader is conversion, not bookings. A backlog is only as good as the company's ability to deliver against it on schedule and at the assumed margin, and the filing is explicit that backlog is the future sales the company expects to recognize on firm orders. The number frames the opportunity; execution against supply chains and program timelines decides how much of it lands in any given year.

We are deliberately citing the structure over the narrative. The backlog and revenue figures here are drawn from RTX's own SEC filing and its structured financial data, surfaced through SEC filings, the SEC filing data API and evidence index. The record of authority is the filing itself.

Primary source: RTX Corp's Form 10-K for FY2023 at sec.gov; backlog and revenue figures quoted from the filing and the company's XBRL facts. See the SEC filing on sec.gov for the primary record, discovered via SEC filings, the SEC filing data API and evidence index.