Walter & Group.....
From Bob Rumpf :
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Bob:
Your question is a good teaching, "springboard".
Let's discuss, "PLANES".
I suppose, to be more correct we could say:
ROD PLANE: THE ORIENTATION OF THE ROD FROM VERTICAL TO BELOW HORIZONTAL ON EITHER SIDE OF THE BODY.
The one most of us have been using is the one you quote, above. This one is simple and seems to be well understood by most. Of course, we do go below the horizontal as we cast trying to clip the tops off the grass or the foam from the wave tops ..... but those are not common events. As we get super technical with our definitions, we may muddy the water a bit for our students.
Ally Gowans brought up an interesting point when he considered that the plane of the rod is that used during the cast. This is his reasoning for calling it the CASTING PLANE. After discussing this with him in private communication, I have changed my way of looking at it by seeing these two terms as synonymous.
Jason Borger discusses three different planes in his book, THE NATURE OF FLY CASTING, pp. 37-38.
He defines the CASTING PLANE as the path taken by the hand. He defines the ROD PLANE as ---- " the orientation of the rod from vertical to horizontal as it is moved along the Casting Plane (figure 2-24)". I guess his definition of CASTING PLANE is OK when talking about straight line casting..... but it has little meaning (to me) when we enter other casting families such as curve casting, Spey casting, and the various other morphs of elliptical casting.
Third, is his definition of LINE PLANE ---- "The pathway the line follows during the cast" (Note is fig. 2-24, p. 38.) One should also read his description of the use of various line planes in his Chapter 4. along with his diagrams on p. 71.
Tom White and I taught that the term, LINE PLANE could also be seen as line TRAJECTORY. After discussions with a couple of NASA physicists, the term, "LAUNCH ANGLE" was, then, introduced to explain the same thing. (You aim it and let it fly, "launching" your loop in a particular trajectory.)
Going to Mac Brown's, CASTING ANGLES, pp. 59-66, We find LINE PLANE described as: "The line plane refers to the positioning of the fly line during the cast in relationshop to the ground." Mac, obvioiusly, is aware of the limitation of this description when trying to apply it to elliptical casting with his statement, "The line plane may vary or be non-planar. This will depend on the type of cast being analyzed.......".
Mac's description of, ROD PLANE: "The rod plane is used for describing the positioning of the rod during the stroke. The reference measurement is defined as zero degrees being straight up above the caster's center of axis. This is the rod plane of a vertical cast. The horizontal rod plane will be measured at ninety-degrees from the vertical."
One needs to look at p. 62 of his book to gain his concept of CASTING PLANES. His figure 3.8 shows this and it's explanaion:
" Casting planes have been widely accepted by fly fishermen. Casting planes include all the various angles of rod planes, body planes, line planes, worked through or around the clock face. The casting planes are diffiult to percieve because they are two-dimensional being used to destribe three-dimensions all around the caster's body. A non-planar approach for understanding the various motions of spatial displacenemt is needed to fully understand the reality of fly casting."
This is how I look at it as well ..... and is the reason I've taken the position to eliminate the term, CASTING PLANE for casts which are non-planar such as the families of elliptical and curve casts.
Gordy