NPAs are a threat. They increase pilot workload significantly
It is all relative. Thousands of pilots flew NPA's usually by hand in the years leading to the introduction of glass cockpit instrumentation and ever increasing sophistication of automatics. The wartime GCA (radar equivalent to ILS) took good flying skills because they were flown manually raw data. The term "work-load" had not been invented then. Pilots were airmen - with all that implies. With the ever increasing sophistication and reliability of today's automatics, work load has been steadily reduced to often a state of boredom.
Suddenly people bleat about the 'work-load" of flying a bog standard NPA. They are forced to elevate their cockpit activity and either press a few more automatic buttons or God forbid, actually grip the joy-stick or control wheel and fly by hand (following a compliant flight director and autothrottles of course). The pulse rate goes up caused by the increase in "work-load"
They even complain about increase in "workload" even though the automatic pilot system is doing all the work!!
