  The configuration of the interplanetary magnetic field and features of the
related ambient solar wind in the ecliptic and meridional plane are different.
Therefore, one can expect that the orientation of the flux-rope axis of a
coronal mass ejection (CME) influences the propagation of the CME itself.
However, the determination of the CME orientation, especially from image data,
remains a challenging task to perform. This study aims to provide a reference
to different CME orientation determination methods in the near-Sun environment.
Also, it aims to investigate the non-radial flow in the sheath region of the
interplanetary CME (ICME) in order to provide the first proxy to relate the
ICME orientation with its propagation. We investigated 22 isolated CME-ICME
events in the period 2008-2015. We determined the CME orientation in the
near-Sun environment using the following: 1) a 3D reconstruction of the CME
with the graduated cylindrical shell (GCS) model applied to coronagraphic
images provided by the STEREO and SOHO missions and; 2) an ellipse fitting
applied to single spacecraft data from SOHO/LASCO C2 and C3 coronagraphs. In
the near-Earth environment, we obtained the orientation of the corresponding
ICME using in situ plasma and field data and also investigated the non-radial
flow (NRF) in its sheath region. The ability of GCS and ellipse fitting to
determine the CME orientation is found to be limited to reliably distinguish
only between the high or low inclination of the events. Most of the CME-ICME
pairs under investigation were found to be characterized by a low inclination.
For the majority of CME-ICME pairs, we obtain consistent estimations of the
tilt from remote and in situ data. The observed NRFs in the sheath region show
a greater y direction to z direction flow ratio for high-inclination events,
indicating that the CME orientation could have an impact on the CME
propagation.
