Quite where this leaves someone with an FAA IR flying an N Reg Cirrus operated by someone resident in or established in the EU is a bit of a mystery. The situation is not uncommon.
This situation is that by April 2012 you will need to get an EASA PPL IR, as well as your FAA IR. You could go for the 1 year validation, but that is a waste of time, unless you intend moving out of the EU within a year, since the validation requirements duplicate much of the getting the full rating requirements.
The state you are registered in may choose to apply a 'derogation' which pushes back the requirement from April 2012 to April 2014. I guess this is likely but not certain for most countries.
In the interval between April 2012 and April 2014, EASA and the USA may sign a Bilateral Agreement for mutual licence acceptance. I wouldn't rate the chances of that very highly...
You could depend upon some lobbying, or lawsuits, or 'havoc' in the busines jet community changing this. However, this has been written about for years and the total result of the lobbying has been the 2 year derogation and the threat of lawsuits and 'havoc' has been zilch. You could depend on some avoidance of the concept of being an Operator resident in the EU. IMHO, the lawsuits/havoc/avoiding the Operator definition have close to zero chance of being effective. The 2 year derogation looks likely. The Bilateral treaty is an unknown, at best I'd guess a 50% chance of something meaningful in the next few years - but I would not expect that to mean "zero" requirements to do some EASA training or testing.
It's down to you. If "likely" is good enough, then wait and see. If not, I'd get on with an FAA to JAA IR conversion. There is a year to go to 2012, and in my experience, whilst the conversion could be done in weeks, just the exams could take 6-12months if you are fitting in with full time work and family life. This is not trying to scare anyone - I think a derogation is likely. But, if you want
certainty, you will not get it other than by doing a conversion now.
In the CAT case, they will have to exempt them all anyway if they hold an AOC, otherwise a Continental 747 won't be allowed to land at Heathrow
Nope. Continental is not an operator resident in the EU. None of this affects non-EU airlines and there will be no need to 'exempt' them.