To study the influence of tangential flow on laser damage of slow small targets, a research on the effect of tangential airflow on laser ablation in the process of laser irradiation on a typical low slow small target material of nylon 66 was achieved experimentally and in simulation. The physical model of laser ablation on nylon 66 was established. Based on the model, the temperature field distribution and ablation morphology of nylon materials for 4 s and 1.5 s laser irradiation with and without tangential airflow recorded by a thermal infrared imager were analyzed. The experimental results show that the effect of tangential airflow on the process of laser ablation of nylon 66 is divided into two main stages: in the irradiation early stage, the tangential airflow slows down the thermal increase of nylon 66 materials under laser irradiation, thus restraining the laser ablation of nylon material; However, with the rise of temperature, the increase of the thermal decomposition products leads to laser shielding effect enhancement, thus the tangential flow reduces the attenuation of thermal decomposition products on the surface of target materials to laser and can provide more oxygen for ablation of nylon material. Finally, the process of laser ablation on nylon was simulated by ANSYS. The simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results, which verifies the reliability of the theory.