Deadeye,

You're right. On full-scale Cessna 182's, there is no carry-through structure for the wing that intrudes into the cabin. The struts carry the lift and landing loads of the wings. This means that the ceiling of the cabin is no more than about 1" thick, which gives plenty of headroom for the pilot and passengers. In the model, there is a lot of wing where there is none in the real airplane.

The pilot's eyeline will be below the top of the window, but the rest of the head is above it. High-wing pilots have to get used to ducking their heads down to help look to the side, and to raising the wing before turning to make sure it's safe to do so.