None of these are trivial events; I was struck twice on consecutive days when flying the S61 in the North Sea; on the first occasion the lightning burnt a hole through the rotating swash plate, damaged all blades and required a gearbox change; on the second the strike was to the Spilsbury Tindall aerial which then flew back smashing a cockpit window and damaging all blades.
Nothing quite as frightening at night as feeling a 120kt draft of air whilst both blind and deaf; when we recovered enough of our senses to start to evaluate the problems, the dear old S61 was still flying within a hundred feet of our cruise altitude at 120kts. Only on the second occasion was there any Cb showing on the RADAR but because it was a squall line, it was impossible to fly round.
The S76 that threw the blade was also struck by lightning - it contributed to the subsequent failure.
Extent of damage on composite blades may increase as they age.
Jim