If they weren't disconnected, everyone would trip over them when the tailcone was removed for maintenance, and I'm fairly certain that there aren't enough threads in the turnbarrels to take out that much slack!
Early jets were attention hogs because the technology was so new and the engines were still pretty tempramental, read up on adjusting the thrust blocks in the tailpipe of a J-47 on an F-86 to make the thing develop correctly directed thrust so the thing wasn't a really high speed tricycle. Early jet engines were very time limited because metallurgy was still being worked out on them and they all had serious reliability issues requiring pretty regular accessing for fixing, I remember watching a film on the XB-48 where the test crew landed and were discussing the flight as a fire breaks out in one of the engine pods, no one was in a real hurry to rush over and put the fire out, they sort of strolled over to the engines, the flight crew kind of glanced around like you would if a guy rode down your street on a semi-loud motorcycle, they caught fire all the time and it wasn't any biggie to them then.
Everyone is so 'ho-hum' with new, modern jet engines and their reliability, really early JT-8's on Caravelles and early 727's were lucky to run a few hundred hours between major maintenance because the engine was derived from the powerplant for the HOUND DOG stand off missile and they weren't really reliable until P&W put on a major redesign/improvement program
Cue the theme music to 'The Flintstones' please
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