How to detect what class an instance is from in flash(as3)

I am relatively new to Flash and I am trying to make a little game. For that I need to detect, if the player clicked on a plane or a bird.

I am spawning them with addChild and the name of each instance is generated. The eventlistener is attached to the instance.

I tried detecting it like that, but it doesn't seam to work. It detects the clicking (it prints out the shot: instance but not the trace commands in the if), but not was was clicked on.

function shoot(e: MouseEvent): void {
    trace("shot: "+ e.target.name);
    if (e.target is Plane) {
        trace("shot plane");
        e.target.parent.removeChild(e.target);
        gotoAndStop(3);
    }
    if (e.target == Bird) {
        trace("shot bird");
        score += 1;
        e.target.parent.removeChild();
    }
}

Does anybody have a tip?

Try using e.currentTarget rather than e.target.

if (e.currentTarget is Plane) {
    ...
}
if (e.currentTarget is Bird) {
    ...
}

The current target of an event is a reference to the item you added the event listener to. The target, on the other hand, is the item actually clicked (which could be the same as current target, or a descendant/child object of it)

You can use getQualifiedClassName to check the object type:

trace(flash.utils.getQualifiedClassName(e.currentTarget));